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Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Review
Great characters and addictive tactical combat make this 150-hour campaign well worth the time. Continue reading
Deceive Inc. Preview: Combining Social Multiplayer, Stealth, and Hero Shooter
What do you get when you cross a game of social stealth with a hero shooter? That’s what Deceive Inc wants to find out, with developers Sweet Bandits Studios cooking up a retro-future of funkadelic spies and sassy villains competing for a single prize.
Each round of Deceive Inc kicks off with a simple setup: You’ve chosen your spy, now you’re dumped unceremoniously onto the map, already disguised, one of 12 players with the same objective: Get into a secret vault, get a golden briefcase, and get out.
In a recent hands-on session, I got a chance to check out an early build of Deceive Inc. What I found was a studio trying to make something we haven’t seen before—and doing a pretty good job at it.
In a round of Deceive Inc you can take one of several broad strategies to win: You can try to move through increasing levels of security quickly to get to the case first. You can focus on tracking down other spies and eliminating them. Or you can stay low, focus on arming yourself and getting upgrades, then try to snag the case in the final mad rush to escape.
Which you’re best at will depend on what your personal skills are and on what character you pick. There are generalists, like Squire, whose silenced pistol, item-finding, and speed bursts let him excel both in and out of combat. Then there are specialists, like Madame Xiu, whose kit is all about flitting about to find and mow down enemies with an automatic crossbow.
I took a liking to Cavaliere, whose dual automatic pistols were superb at ambushing enemies in tight spaces. Combine that with her ability to do kung-fu melee leaps and I felt safe in fights. The icing on the cake was her ability to trap an entire room’s electronics, letting you pick juicy places to set up fights.
Of course, you’ve got to combine the three main strategies to win. The trick with Deceive Inc is that you have to stay flexible throughout the round, which has three phases.
First, you infiltrate. In this phase you want to gather intel points from terminals, then spend them to unlock doors, find items, and hack the terminals that open the secret vault. This is the phase of sneaking, where the map is wide open and there’s loot to grab—like the moments after the drop in a Battle Royale. Too conspicuous and another agent will pick you off. Too sneaky and the good stuff will all be gone before you get to it.
Second, the vault doors open. Now you can sneak through escalating security zones towards the prize, but so is everyone else. Anyone who wants to try and get that briefcase is being pushed into a big funnel with the other players. Anyone who wants to wait outside can do so—the rest of the map is still accessible—but they risk being out of position for phase three: the escape.
Once someone claims the briefcase they’ve got to make it to an extraction point around the map. Problem is, if you run with the case your location gets pinged, constantly, to every other player. After making it to an extraction zone, then, you’ve got another problem: First calling the escape vehicle, then getting on it, all while every spy left on the map is closing in for the kill. It’s an absolute high stakes, chaotic bloodbath.
Through those phases Deceive Inc really shows off what it’s about. The gun combat and use of hero skills play really nicely with the stealth and gadget elements, forcing you to figure out how to combine your situation with the tools you have. Combat is dangerous but times to kill are pretty high. You can usually pull off a clever escape if you feel threatened, or change tactics to figure out a way to win.
It’s nice that getting your cover blown isn’t a death sentence. Not always, at least: Your cover is a shield, so that first hit knocking you out of it has reduced damage. The problem is when you mess up, shooting an NPC or having them blow your cover by going into a restricted area without the right color-coded disguise. That leaves you exposed and vulnerable if another spy is around to notice.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on Deceive Inc as its development progresses. For more stealth multiplayer goodness, click above for the trailer for Spectre, a spiritual successor to Splinter Cell’s Spies vs. Mercenaries multiplayer mode.
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Rollerdrome Preview: Extreme Sports Just Got a Whole Lot More Extreme
There are few premises capable of stealing my heart as quickly as Rollerdrome, but after approximately 30 seconds gliding around on rollerskates while shooting enemies in slow motion, I was completely sold. Immediately doing away with any sense of real… Continue reading
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Disney Dreamlight Valley: The First Hands-On Preview
In March of 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the biggest game in the world because it came at a time when gamers just needed a place to exist when they couldn’t do so in the outside world. Two years later, Disney Dreamlight Valley aims to capture that same magic, but instead of animal-like villagers joining your island, it’s populated with some of the most beloved and iconic Disney characters of all time. And although Disney Dreamlight Valley’s life-simulation aspect isn’t quite up there with the likes of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley based on my playtime thus far, its magic does have a hold of me, and it’s proven that it is indeed fun to do the impossible.
When I first booted up Disney Dreamlight Valley, I never expected to be reminded so much of Kingdom Hearts (more on that later) – yet here we are. Starting with the story, your ambiguous character is dropped onto a mysterious island with very little clue as to what is going on. You’re instantly met with Merlin, of Sword in the Stone fame, but unfortunately even he isn’t much help. See, everyone in the Disney kingdom is infected with something called “The Forgetting” which essentially means they’ve, well, forgotten everything. While some may be disappointed that these characters may not be privy to the backstory we’ve all grown up with, I do feel it’s the best way to include familiar characters while also having them be enough of a blank slate for the player to build a bond with all their own.
That’s about as far as the story’s gone with the small amount of progress I’ve made for this preview, but it’s enough to hook me. Everyone has lost their memory, and it’s your job to help them get it back while building them a new home – got it. I honestly don’t really play these types of games for the story anyways, and this is where Disney Dreamlight Valley thrives. Just like in Animal Crossing, I wanted to be dropped onto a messy island that needs my care with semi-vanilla characters to build a relationship with, and that’s exactly what I got.
When you’re finally allowed to start exploring, the first thing you’ll notice is that your island is an absolute mess, and that’s exactly how I like it. Learning the locations and landmarks of your new virtual home is key to becoming attached to it, and having to spend the first few hours cleaning it up taught me everything I needed to know about this place. In that time, I tidied up some Night Thorns (the thing that’s made everyone forget everything), helped Goofy fix up his seed stand, and even built a shop for Scrooge McDuck. I also got to fish, mine, dig, cook, craft, and plant crops. It’s all here, just with that magical Disney spin.
The main attraction to Disney Dreamlight Valley over something like Animal Crossing (sorry I keep comparing it to Animal Crossing, but it really is similar!) is its questing system. Dreamlight Valley is always giving you something to do, and its story and daily quests are a large part of that. Every character has a seemingly endless supply of missions for you to undertake, and while the early ones are mostly geared towards teaching you how to play, there is a Disney charm to them that eventually becomes essential to building relationships with the characters, which not only provides story beats, but also helps raise relationships with them.
Every character you meet has a friendship level with their own set of rewards. And while you could eventually make it a personal goal to max them all out, I found it was best to see who offered what, so I could focus specifically on attaining those rewards. When you first drop on the island, there are only a handful of villagers to complete missions for and build bonds with. Merlin is your tour guide, teaching you everything you need to know while driving the story forward, Goofy is a vendor, always eager to buy and sell things you might collect, and Scrooge McDuck acts as this game’s Tom Nook, always lightheartedly pestering you for coins to upgrade the various village landmarks, including your home.
Remember when I mentioned that Dreamlight Valley gives me Kingdom Hearts vibes? Well that comparison is not just because there are Disney characters in a video game. I’m so sorry to have to do this again but….just like Animal Crossing, you’re not just building an island for yourself, you’re building it for other villagers to come and stay. To make this happen, you’ll need to visit other worlds, each complete with their own setting and iconic Disney friends.
For this preview I was only allowed to visit Moana’s world, and unlike Kingdom Hearts’ truncated retelling of an iconic story with a Heartless twist, these are just small quest lines with the sole objective of getting the classic character to come live on your island. After sailing around with Moana to find a lantern for her boat, she agreed to live in my world, and even brought over a list of Hawaiian themed items for me to craft and build. Each world visit is nowhere near as extensive as you would find in Kingdom Hearts, but gives you enough of a story reason why you’re living on an valley filled with random Disney toons.
At first, I wasn’t sure where the meat of the gameplay for Disney Dreamlight Valley would be coming from. Cleaning up my island didn’t take THAT long, and I was burning through quests at a pretty rapid place, but once Moana joined and I realized she had her own set of quests and needs, it dawned on me. Disney has nearly limitless amounts of properties. And since Dreamlight Valley is a live-service game, with enough player support, I can’t even imagine what your world can look like in a year’s time. I was only able to visit a few of the starting biomes, but your valley seems pretty big, and every time you log in, your villagers will literally be begging for your attention.
The promise to be able to build and live in your very own Disneyland (of sorts) is bold, but seems very achievable in Dreamlight Valley. This isn’t a farming simulator, however. If you’re aiming to be a hardcore manager of crops and watering systems and looking to raise as much profit as possible, this isn’t the game for that. Crops grow in minutes, your watering can never runs dry, and chugging apples and cookies can re-energize your character in seconds. No, winning in this game means forming bonds with your villagers, building a house and town to your exact liking, and dressing up in a seemingly unlimited amount of outfits for your characters. With countless Disney properties at Gameloft’s disposal, Disney Dreamlight Valley has the potential to be fun for as long as your imagination holds up, and I can’t wait to play more.
Mark Medina is a Senior Editorial Producer for IGN. You can find him on IGN’s weekly PlayStation podcast, Beyond, or on Twitter @Mark_Medina.
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Where to Preorder Bayonetta 3: Trinity Masquerade Edition in the UK
Bayonetta 3: Trinity Masquerade Edition preorders are now live in the UK, and you can preorder from Amazon and pay nothing until the game ships at the end of October. Continue reading
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