Being honest, there is always quite a lot of excitement, whenever a new Pokémon game is announced, but for all the hype they get, there is always a group of people that basically demand, what about my home console version. Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee are aiming to fill both gaps it seems.

The game was playable on the show floor at E3 2018, but it was only playable with standard controllers, in the media section, I was lucky enough to play the game with the new Pokéball Plus controller, which was very cool, but also highlighted how basic the game is going to be. Getting it out of the way first, the Pokéball Plus is tiny, only slightly larger than a Golf ball, it is nowhere near as large as you might be thinking. I think this is about the only time I can say, thank goodness for the wrist strap, because without it, I would be worried about losing it. The controller itself contains only one physical button and one stick, but that also acts as a button when pressed down, meaning you have two buttons and a stick to play with.

Moving is done with the stick, clicking the stick down is your A button, with the giant button is your B and that is the controls, simple yes, but not all of them. The part of the game that I was allowed to play, had me roaming through the Veridian Forest, scattered amongst the trees and grass were lots of wild Pokémon and a few trainers. By now you should be aware that it contains the basic Pokémon, Pidgey, Caterpie and such, but what was interesting is that they are now visible on the map, no longer do you need to wander through the grass, in the hopes of triggering a visit from a random Pokémon. The odd part is that whenever you enter a space where there are now, they all appear with a strange blue warping effect around them and at one point, I had a half dozen of them appear all at once.

Wandering around is all well and good, but the battles is where it’s at, literally as regular wild Pokémon battles are not the same and as always, there are countless kids in the woods collecting bugs and such. Joining battle is as easy as ever, as I was playing with Pikachu, he was the Pokémon that went out first, then the other trainer threw out their Pokémon of choice, a few attacks later and I was the winner. The attacks played out much like they did in Sun and Moon, where you got a lot of flash, but very little happened from the Pokémon themselves, still its much more impressive than how they used to be.

Outside of the battles, all I was able to do, was some exploration and catch new Pokémon, the exploring was the part that I enjoyed the most, because not only did I have Pikachu on my shoulder, as he does, Eevee rides on your head, I had a Charmander walking behind me. You can now have any additional Pokémon from your party, follow behind you and the Nintendo rep on hand, did point out that some can be ridden, like Onyx in the announcement trailer. Walking around and having Charmander follow me, whilst Pikachu rode on my shoulder, was something that I don’t think I could ever get bored of watching, though I hope to achieve greatness by having a Zapdos slowly flying behind me one day.

Where the game felt stupid to me and I use that word, because it is, was catching Pokémon, now there is no just battling wild Pokémon, if you enter into a ‘battle’ with one, then you can either catch it or run away. Avoiding them is easy enough, though at one point, whilst trying to avoid a Pidgey and a Ratata, I walked into a Metapod, there were just so many in the grass, it was hard to get around them all. The problem is, capturing them is too easy, all I had to do, was throw a berry at them, which made them happy, it changed the ever-shrinking circle go green and when it got to the centre, throwing a Pokéball, resulted in a capture each time.

There was no requirement for me to attack the Pokémon or anything, just give it a berry and I was good to go, that being said, as I was using the Pokéball Plus, I was throwing my arm, like I was throwing a real life Pokéball, which was cool. But I did also manage to over throw the ball, missing the Pokémon completely, so there is a little challenge there, however when doing a simple throw, it landed every time.

As the build only allowed me to wander the forest, I can’t talk about the rest of the game, but given how they have ‘streamlined’ capturing Pokémon, I don’t think anything to drastic will take place here. While the battling was fun, capturing Pokémon was not so much, though perhaps the full game will add more to do and experience.

While E3 is all about the new, where Call of Duty Black Ops 4 shined, Call of Duty WWII keeps going, with Activision today announcing that United Front, the next DLC will be releasing for PlayStation 4 on June 26 and other platforms to follow.



United Front includes three new Multiplayer maps: Market Garden, Monte Cassino, and Stalingrad. United Front also features a new War Mode mission: Operation Supercharge, as well as a fresh Nazi Zombies experience, where four new heroes are sent across three distinct locations to transport and defend the final pieces of Emperor Barbarossa’s sword.

Read up on all the new maps and the new War Mode mission on the PlayStation Blog, but also included is the next chapter in the zombies saga.

The Allied forces are crumbling under the relentless advance of the Final Reich. General Rideau decides to take one last, dangerous gambit: to personally lead a small, unmarked caravan across the 2,000 miles of smoldering, infested land that stand between Berlin and the Allied-controlled port of Malaga. From there, he and his crew face a treacherous voyage across icy southern waters and U-boat blockades.

His mission? Transport the remaining pieces of Emperor Barbarossa’s legendary sword to the edge of the world. Uncover the lost forges of ancient Thule. Make the sword whole again… and deliver a final death to the Undying.

Experience the all-new Nazi Zombies gameplay, which transports players across three unique and challenging locations, only in the United Front DLC Pack.

Days Gone has now had a number of showings at E3 and each time it appeared, it looked better and better, but now that it has a release date, they finally made it playable and after spending time with the game, I am conflicted on it still.

Deacon St. John is the main character and apart from a strange name, is a down to earth biker, who just happens to be living in a world populated by zombies and that is the basics of the game. When I sat down to play it, one of the developers explained that I had two things I could try, one was story based and early in the game, the other took place not long after it and contained a section where you had to try and kill one of the massive hordes of zombies, being unsure of how things would progress, I stuck with the story part to begin.

Deacon and a friend are near an auto repair shop, in the hopes of finding a part for Deacon’s own bike, the plan that he has is simple, his friend will ride through the space, on his bike, drawing away the vast majority of the zombies, or freakers as they are called, leaving only a few remaining for Deacon to deal with. Bike guy away and it was time to play, now what you might be expecting is a shooter, but the game really plays out as more of a stealth game, you can run around and shoot, but doing that creates noise, which draws freakers to you, so keeping low and quiet is your best bet, so with a crouch, off I went.

As I got close towards some buildings, little freakers were spotted, these guys look more like children, something I don’t think you see a lot of in other zombie games and the developer pointed out a few facts about them. First up, they are weak, given their smaller size, they will stay away from you and other freakers if they can, secondly, they like to stay up high, because if they are down on the ground, the ‘adult’ freakers will eat them and finally, while they are weak solo, in a group they can deal significant damage, so avoiding them is key, unless you want a fight. Taking out a few of them around the edge, was all I did, because I did not want to start a massive fight, but clearing them out, gave me an easier time moving forward, however that did not last.

Getting around the fence, I almost walked into a full size freaker, something I did not expect, so with a quick input from the dev, who was watching me play, a silent takedown and I was ok, the problem was, I was not as quite as I would have like to have been, my struggle drew the attention of another one. I was thankful that I shot it, without drawing others to the noise, but it drove home the lesson, that just because you do a silent takedown, does not mean others wont see you. Clearing the next barrier, I was soon within the building that would contain the bike part, a quick look around proved to be fruitful as there was more things to find and then it was time to regroup with biker guy, but before I could, something happened to him, he encountered other humans.

I won’t say what happens at that point, needless to say, its quite violent, but the demo moved on and it was now time to see if I could survive the zombie horde, turns out the short answer is no. The horde was down in a crater, just doing whatever they do, so I had plenty of time to lay down traps, proximity mines and such, when I felt ready, I launched a few shots from my very large gun down into the mix and then all hell broke loose. There were a few barrels I could shoot, blowing them up, one of which was right next to a collection of logs, which when disturbed, rolled around, crushing a few freakers, the problem though, was that the horde was far large than I thought and faster. They managed to catch up pretty quickly, so I made for a truck, hoping to get away from them, I managed to climb up, knowing that they would follow from the front, the problem was, when I pulled the gun up to aim, I fell off and was quickly covered in them and died.

In fact, the three times I died, was all because I fell off of a truck, the second and third times around, I tried layout out traps further out, with the plan being that I would draw them on the bike, to where I wanted them, but the traps would only take out a few at a time and there were a lot of them. Eventually, I got stuck on the bike, so I climbed up to a truck for safety, but fell off and died, leaving me to try again, on the third try though, I was using more of the environment, something the dev thought would help, there was a fuel truck, which when exploded, dealt some significant damage, but still not enough. After playing that section, I walked away knowing that the game was going to be great for some and not for others, the stealth section was wicked, because how I played, would change what happened for me, but the horde part was just too much.

Days Gone has only a little while before its February 22nd release and it needs to prove that the hordes can be taken out or skipped, because right now, those hordes are going to be the noose around its neck and I know some people will be like, just get good, the problem is, as a game mechanic its fun as heck, mandatory missions, not so much. I want to like the game, but I feel I need more time with the game.

E3 2016 gave us our first look at a current gen version of Spider-Man and a lot of people took notice, but it was not until this year’s E3, that people finally got a chance to play it for themselves and after spending a good chunk of time with it, I can say, the wait was worth it.

Sitting down for an E3 demo though, is like being told how to walk, there are only a few things you can do to make it interesting, but its just going from point at to point b, in the end, however with Spider-Man it was different. The demo on offer provided a massive portion of the city to explore, getting to close to the edge did result in a message that said turn back, but apart from that, the whole thing was up to players to experience as they saw fit. What surprised me though, was after talking with other people, some got other major story points and others got similar to me, but the resulting experience meant that if I had the time, then I would have gone back for more.

Opening up into the world, it was just waiting for me to start swinging, so I did and thankfully, the swinging mechanics are beautiful and simple, pressing R2 shoots a web out and it will attach itself to the nearest building and you are on your way. If you press jump at the top most part of your swing, you will launch yourself further and then pressing R2 again, keeps the swing going, if you played Spider-Man 2 back when it released, the resulting feeling will, well feel familiar. The biggest difference though is that, when you encounter buildings, while swinging, you keep your momentum going, rather than just stopping.

Outside of swinging, I was able to partake in a number of missions, a few of them were your average crimes being committed by silly people, one though was quite large and very story driven. One of the crimes had guys driving around town, with an active bomb in the back of a van, behind them was basically a support car and with that in place, I could not get close enough to the van. Thankfully, the game does a good job of letting players be Spider-Man, without the need to learn super complex controls. When I got close enough to an enemy, the game would tell me to press triangle, causing Spidey to launch at the enemy, throwing them from the car and then tangling them in some webs, great power, with only a single button press.

The rest of the guys fell much in the same way, but it changed up a lot, when it came to defusing the bomb, well by defusing, I mean throwing it into the air and launching a barrage of webbing at it, which feels more Spider-Man than anything else. After this a call came in, about a robbery taking place at a bank and a quick thwip across the city had Spidey landing in the safe, alongside Shocker, a villain who was released by some stroke of luck on his part and misfortune on ours, but after a nice little cutscene, the battle began.

What took place, was an epic fight, between Shocker and the opulence of a New York Bank, with Spider-Man just sort of there, as Shocker was destroying everything he could, in order to hit Spidey. Thankfully, the combat, which plays out much like the Arkham series, kept me rushing back into the fray, but with Shocker protected by his fancy new suit, some thinking was in order to defeat him, but I won’t spoil that for you here. In the end, Shocker was defeated and I was smiling, having won, a tough fight and not only did I enjoy what time I had with the game, I walked away thinking that, yes, the game looks good, but it also plays good as well, which for a Spider-Man game, is crucial.

How much fun will be found in the full game is, as of yet unknown, but I can’t wait to find out.

PlayStation Australia have announced that on July 18, gaming on PlayStation 4 will become more affordable, with the release of the PlayStation Hits lineup, which adds 22 games to both the digital store and physical stores, at a discounted price.


All the games in the series will be priced at $24.95, making it some of the most affordable gaming around and given the quality of the launch lineup, that is impressive. While there are only 22 announced for now, expect more to be added as time moves on, as the series is here to stay. Here is the list of games coming on July 18:

• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
• LittleBigPlanet™ 3
• DRIVECLUB™
• Ratchet & Clank™
• Killzone™ Shadow Fall
• Bloodborne
• inFAMOUS: Second Son™
• The Last of Us™ Remastered
• Project CARS™
• Dragon Ball® XENOVERSE                                                                                       
• DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition                 
• Watch_Dogs
• Assassin's Creed® IV Black Flag™                                                                         
• Rayman® Legends                                                                                                       
• Mortal Kombat X                                                                                                     
• Batman™: Arkham Knight                                                                                   
• Middle-Earth™: Shadow of Mordor™         
• Need For Speed™                                                                                                           
• Need For Speed™ Rivals                                                                                             
• EA SPORTS™ UFC® 2                                                                                                           
• Yakuza 0
• Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow Of New Despair   

More games will be added overtime, but who knows what they will be.

At E3 2018, Koei Tecmo announced that Warriors Orochi 4, would be bringing back couch co-op to the series, but now they have announced that the game will release onto PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on October 19.


The latest entry in the series also adds the inaugural appearance of Magic abilities, allowing characters to wield phenomenally powerful and visually impressive attacks against their most challenging foes. These new-found powers come from the Gods’ most divine artifacts: the Sacred Treasures. In this distorted, merged version of their worlds, all Warriors are unexpectedly gifted with a Sacred Treasure that fuels their spell-casting attacks. Alongside their legacy moves and special attacks they can now cast ranged and targeted spells, or even combine their powers with those of an ally for truly devastating blows!

Funko has announced that The Clone Wars are returning this August, with the release of four Pop Figures, inspired by the tv series.

The Force is strong with this wave, which includes Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, General Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Grand Master Yoda.

Sega have announced that Valkyria Chronicles 4 is going to release on all platforms on September 25, with first run editions of the game, coming packaged with a limited edition Ragnarok sticker.



Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place in the same timeframe as the original Valkyria Chronicles, but focuses on a whole new cast of main characters. Players will take command of the eager, young Commander Claude Wallace, engineer/heavy weapons extraordinaire Riley Miller, hotheaded Darcsen Raz, ice-cold ace sniper Kai Schulen, and more. Together, they will experience the painful realities of war--but will the bonds of Squad E's friendships survive the frozen battlefield? 

The part overhead turn-based strategy, part RPG, and part real-time 3rd person shooter "BLiTZ" battle system returns to the field. New features include an explosive new class called the Grenadier, numerous offensive/defensive battleship support options, chances for a unit to have a "Last Stand" action before death, and more. Plus, fight the imperial threat with more units on larger-scale maps than ever before.

The series' signature hand-drawn visual style is back and overhauled for the newest generation. Inspired by watercolor compositions, the CANVAS Graphics Engine blends visual elements of reality and imagination to create an expressive world filled with colorful emotions. Watch the journey of Squad E unfold like an interactive painting.

Studio Wildcard has released a new trailer for the upcoming ARK: Survival Evolved expansion, called Extinction. Players will need to finish your journey through the worlds of ARK in ‘Extinction’, where the story began and ends: on Earth itself.

Being honest, I never gave the Ys series a look in before, each time I saw the game, I thought, oh another JRPG, but with the most recent entry making the jump to Switch, I figured, what the heck and would give it a go. Normally, JRPG’s are not my thing, but after dropping 40+ hours into this one, I can say I am a convert to the series.

The game kicks off, with Adol, the main character, staring off the side of a ship, as it makes its way to a new location for him to explore, but he is not a passenger on the ship, he is working as payment for passage. After inspecting all the guest of the ship, based on instruction by the captain, the ship is attacked and after a valiant effort, the ship is sunk and Adol washes ashore on a deserted island, but not just any island, the Isle of Seiren. After a bit, Adol meets up with the first of the survivors, Laxia and then soon after the Captain, together they start to plan, the main quest for Adol and his group, locate survivors and survey the island, so everyone can learn what is nearby. The story picks up quickly, with Adol having dreams of a girl and another civilization, but just as there are mysteries about his dreams, the island holds a lot of them as well.


Of course, combat is only one part of the game, another part is the exploration, given that it is one of the two tasks that Adol and his group are venturing out for, it makes sense. As you explore the world, more of the map fills in, Little Paro might give you an idea of things in areas, but until you visit that particular space, you will have no idea about what lies around the corner. The best time and really the only time that it was an issue, was when I encountered an area bathed in fog, walking through it proved to be disastrous, due to the large and dangerous creature living within. Exploring the island is made easy by use of crystals that allow you to fast travel to areas that you have been to before, but they also hold another purpose, later in the game, they allow you to travel back in time.

Well, not so much back in time, but they allow you to control another character, Dana, who lives in the past, when you combine the two stories and locations together, things take a very dramatic turn and while I am all for dramatics, I just did not like how this story played out. Thankfully, getting out there an exploring the world as Dana, or at least the city, was a nice break from the constant fighting that Adol and crew were doing, learning more about the history of Dana’s people was also nice. The only part of the game that I really did not like were the raids, which was a shame, as you would think they could be something truly special.

At random points, or at least, not long after you passed a warp crystal, Little Paro would arrive to let you know that the village you were building, was under threat from the creatures of the island. Now apart from a few, you could choose to ignore the bulk of them, but your village would take a beating, I did not ignore them, because I did not want to see any of the progress I had made, be washed away, but at the same time, whenever that raid symbol appeared on the screen, I would get a little angry. Now the raids themselves were not too difficult, but there was a level of frustration that came from having to fight large amounts of creatures, with the reward being the same items that you could find out in the world.

The only reason I did them all, was as I said, to make sure my village was not damaged in any way, as you progress through the game, you will be given more and more chances to do quests for people, which can, in turn, improve the village. What starts out as basically a fire pit and a tree stump, soon has a proper kitchen and medical space, a blacksmith and more, even one the earliest quests has Laxia and Allison requesting some curtains, to help separate the ladies sleeping quarters from the mens, but that single mission, makes the interior feel different. It is important to note that you don’t have to do these quests, nor do you need to complete them, if you start them, at one point, I was attempting to find some material to build a small boat, but I could never get the final piece of resin that I needed, so no boat for me, except the game needed the boat in order to progress the story and while I failed the mission, I was able move forward in the story.

The reason that the boat was needed, was due to a single character refusing to work with people, so they steal it only to find themselves taken out by the giant creature that lives near the island. The problem with this character, was that I did not like them at all, so seeing them killed off, was a relief, because they never did anything but complain. The only sad part was that the games presentation feels very much stuck in the PlayStation 2 animation era, so a lot of cuts and emoticons appear over the heads of people, rather than complete animations. The problem with this is simple, it looks crap, there is no way to say it nicer than that, watching a character turn around on the spot, whilst doing a walking animation looks strange, but seeing the shocked reactions of Sahad, were just hilarious, something I am sure the developer was trying to avoid, given the subjects being spoken about at the time.

Speaking of, well speaking, the game features spoken dialogue, at least at times, characters will speak for a while, only to go mute and have their words replaced by written text, the problem is, they will still randomly pop up with a single word or two, even in those moments. The fact that the game can’t decide what type of presentation it wants to keep, just results in a garbled bag, again something you would find in a PlayStation 2 game, the music though, that is great. Exploring the Coral Forests or the caves throughout the world, are accompanied with a wonderful musical score, something I did not expect and the trips through time, also changed up the score, to help sell the difference.

Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA is a great game, it’s not a full JRPG, meaning people who avoid them, will have no reason to here, but it still keeps a foot in the genre, allowing those who enjoy those type of games to find a lot here. The island you explore is varied enough, that finding the out of the way locations, is fun and never to difficult, but some forced elements and inconsistent presentation will confuse some players.



Review copy provided by NIS America

Thanks to E3, I had the chance to not only check out Generation Zero, though I did not get to play it, I had a chance to ask the games director, Emil Kraftling a few questions about the game, including why they chose to set it in Sweden.


Maxi-Geek: Any particular period in 2019 or just that for now?

Emil Kraftling: For now its 2019 (chuckles)

MG: So January 1?

EK: Let’s say 31st of December and maybe we’ll push it forward.


MG: So, is the game just for Xbox or is it coming to other platforms as well?

EK: It is coming to Xbox and Steam, PC and to PlayStation as well.


MG: Is it exclusive to Xbox for a period?

EK: All platforms will be launched at the same time.


MG: Why set the game in 1980’s Sweden?

EK: Good question. Now I get to tell you the origin story of the game. How it actually began, was that we were working on our previous project, which was a hunting simulator called ‘the Hunter: Call of the Wild’ and when we set out to do our next self-published game, we knew that we wanted to do something that was more mainstream. When we looked at the game we had, we saw all these mechanics that were, stealth-action mechanics that in a different setting would be, a fantastic totally different game. One of the reserves in that game was actually the spitting image of the countryside where I grew up, in Sweden, so I got these throwback memories, to when I played in the woods together with my brothers, playing war, in the late 80s.

So, having the creative freedom of a self-published game, we felt that, hey this is something we can do, we could probably not have pitched it to a publisher, but with the full creative freedom of self-publishing the game, we thought, yeah lets do it, because we believe in it. It’s a setting that is so authentic to us, because a lot of members of the team, grew up in 1980’s Sweden and it’s so close at heart, so we feel that even though people who weren’t Swedes or didn’t grow up in the 80’s of Sweden, would feel that authenticity come across when they play it and the world would seem like a real place basically.

So, that’s where it started and then there was a story about Sweden in the cold war that we thought, no-one had really told before and on we went and it fit together.


MG: It reminds me a lot of ‘Dark’ the German Netflix show.

EK: Yeah, with the forest setting?


MG: Yep, now where the demo started, is that were you get onto the shore from your boat?

EK: No, this is about an hour into the game.


MG: So, you are not decked out with weapons when you start the game?

EK: No, when you start you have nothing.


MG: And all the information, about what you need to do, is explained at the start of that?

EK: Yes, you will get a soft start.


MG: The weapons seem to have colours, is there a quality system in place?

EK: Yeah, so the quality levels are currently defined through colours, but what they are now, is not necessarily final.


MG: The main story thread, is there a set number of hours you would expect it to take to finish off?

EK: I could not really say a specific time, because it depends on how people play it and how creative they get. We expect people to play with the dynamic systems, that they can overcome certain challenges faster than we could have thought of as developers, but there is definitely an end, or a sort of end, that you will strive towards, to get the answers of what is really going on, maybe you will find out, maybe you won’t.
But there is definitely a story that you can follow, but we think a lot of people will play it just for the open world.

MG: When the boombox was thrown down, it was playing a very synth heavy, 80’s style music. Will there be 80’s Swedish pop-rock music in the game, or will it just be internally developed?

EK: We have a composer creating a soundtrack for the game, that is heavily 80’s inspired and it’s fantastic. It is a small team, it’s not a Triple A, $60 budget game, so in terms of licencing we don’t necessarily have all the options, but we are looking at those options, to see what we can do.
I think a lot of 80’s music in Sweden was actually the same as elsewhere, we were that far behind.


MG: You said before that the game is being made on your own internal engine?

EK: Yes, Apex.

MG: And you have been using that for…?

EK: We are using that for all of our games, we used it on our hunting game, the Hunter Call of the Wild, as well as Rage 2 and Just Cause 4.

MG: Is it pumping out 4K on the Xbox?

EK: It’s currently not 4K, but it is Xbox One X enhanced

The game is set for a 2019 release, but for now, you can check out the BCD of the game, but until then, maybe do some research on this cold war story, if you want to know more.