THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT is back for over 4 years of wait and is fanally ready for 2015. pg 2-3 PS4 SLIM ALREDY? NEW WINDOWS WHIT CORTANA. pg 4-5 NEW FANTASTIC 4 MOVIE DETAILS MORTAL KOMBAT NEW CHARACTERS. pg 6-7 1
It finally happened. After two years of hands-off demos, multiple delays, and et cetera, I finally got my grunny hands on The Witcher 3 —not just for a piddling few minutes or a tightly controlled demo, but for four hours. CD Projekt basically sat me down at a computer, booted the game, and said “Go.” And I went. I finished off the tutorial, completed a half dozen side quests, and got through the story basically to the end of what I’ll call “Chapter One.” In other words, right when things started to get interesting? That’s when I ran out of time. Here’s what I noticed, nevertheless.
On tutorials
And it all flows very nicely into the game itself, which plops you into the town of White Orchard to look for an old companion. White Orchard is basically a smaller subset of The Witcher 3’s larger open world, so think of it like the entire game in microcosm—do some side quests, explore a bit, and then when you’re ready you can move on. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Vesimere also sticks around, which helps because Geralt has someone to talk to a.k.a. someone who he can have conversations with that give some context to the world. Did you know Nilfgaard is conquering Temeria? Do you even know what that means? Well if you don’t, it’s not a big deal. Vesimere will explain. That’s a huge change from the previous game, which for some reason hoarded context and made the first few hours a nightmare to understand.
On size
I love The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings. I loathe The Witcher 2’s non-Enhanced Edition opening. If you haven’t played it: You get off a ship as Geralt (the titular witcher of The Witcher, a.k.a. a professional monster hunter). Geralt finds some wounded The Witcher 3 is enormous. White Orchard is clearknight-guy sitting on the road. You find him some ly meant to be the “small” area in Witcher 3 and herbs. You heal him. You proceed up the road to after four hours I’d barely explored half of it. It’s not a single open world though, contrary to an arena. You fight a bunch of enemies using The Witcher 2’s bafflingly sticky and overcomplicated what I thought going into my demo. Instead, it’s combat system. You eventually die. The game says more akin to the previous Witcher titles or (even “You are terrible. You should play the game on more relevant) Dragon Age: Inquisition. There are Easy.” You decline, and continue to play the game three or four major areas to explore, each of which on normal. You enter a city. There are a billion is its own open world. However, these are discrete things to do. You don’t know what to do or what’s maps you travel between. important. You turn off the game. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt You can’t, for instance, sail from Skellige to NovigThat’s literally how I started The Witcher 2. The rad. Instead, you go to the world map and “travel” “find this guy some herbs” thing sucked. The lack of to Novigrad. I asked why, and was told it’s because context sucked. The arena sucked. The city sucked at CD Projekt wanted to keep the geography of the conveying what was important. Basically, everyrealm consistent while still representing all these thing sucked until about four or five hours in, when areas. Basically, they know it would take hours of you finally got your bearings. game-time to sail to Skellige, so instead you just fast The Witcher 3 fixes all my problems. The tutorial travel there. takes place in Kaer Morhen, the stronghold of I spent most of my time in White Orchard, only the witchers. Veterans of the series will recognize getting quick glimpses of Skellige and Novigrad. All Vesemir and other characters, while for newcomthree areas seem gigantic, though I think Dragon ers Age: Inquisition is probably a larger game overall. 2 there’s a healthy dose of context given through various conversations. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2875097/witcher-3-wild-
On controlling Geralt
Combat has always been the weak spot in The Witcher, but I think CD Projekt’s finally figured it out. The controls actually seem pretty similar to The Witcher 2, but animations are more fluid and Geralt is just generally more responsive. It now plays wholly like an action game and less like the weird action/strategy hybrid of Witcher 2 and (even more so) The Witcher.The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt What I’m calling “Act One” ends with the gryphon battle CD Projekt’s been touting, and while combat’s not on a level with God of War, it’s at least fluid and functional enough that the encounter feels momentous. Some other things have been simplified. Geralt’s “Witcher Sense,” which highlights important objects in the world, is now an infinite resource accessed by holding down the Left Trigger. It’s a lot like Batman’s “Detective Mode” in the Arkham games now, and you’ll put it to similar uses— tracking enemies, looking for clues, and the like. One quest had me sussing out why a noonwraith was haunting a village. I mean, I still killed it after I figured out why, but at least I knew the reason. And lastly, exploration. Now that Geralt’s got this big, open world to uncover, he’s a lot more nimble. He climbs things. He jumps on things. He sprints. He rides horses. He jumps off horses. He swims. Geralt 3.0 has been working on his CrossFit, apparently.
On shades of grey
None of the above really matters though. The core of The Witcher is story. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to see any of the long-term effects CD Projekt’s talked about—help a town and see it flourish, hurt a town and see it eventually crumble into ruins—but I did make a fair number of choices during my time with The Witcher 3. Not all of which I’m happy about. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt For instance, there’s the dwarven blacksmith I helped out. I came upon the blacksmith in White
Orchard. He looked pretty despondent, which made sense because someone had torched his forge and burned it to the ground. Nobody knew who did it. Or, at least, nobody was saying. Why they did it—well, that was an easier question to answer. White Orchard recently fell to the hated Nilfgaardian army. Looking to replenish its supplies, the army co-opted the blacksmith to make weapons and armor. Seeing as a witcher’s job is mostly to hunt down monsters, this didn’t really fall under my jurisdiction. It wasn’t a monster that did the burning. Even the blacksmith admitted that. But Temeria’s a hard place, especially in wartime, and I felt bad for the guy. I figured I’d find the arsonist—maybe force him to help with repairs. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt I found the criminal holed up in a shack near the river, limping from a wound he sustained during his escape. I brought him back to the blacksmith, feeling like I’d done a good deed, and then everything went wrong. “Guards! Guards!” shouted the blacksmith, drawing the Nilfgaardians down on us. “This is the man who burned down my forge.” And the soldiers took the criminal and executed him. Which was not at all what I meant to happen. The Witcher ‘s made a name for itself off this sort of stuff—feeling like you’re helping, only to find out you’ve made the wrong decision. Or, at least, that everything’s not so black and white as you originally thought. As far as I can tell, that core is still intact. Even the overarching war drama is morally grey. You meet the Nilfgaardians fairly early on, and they seem entirely reasonable. But everyone you meet hates them. Or there’s the gryphon, which you find out...well, I’ll just let you discover that one for yourself.
Bottom line
By my estimation, I’ve played between 1/6 and 1/25 of The Witcher 3. It was fantastic. I try not to get too hyped about games prior to release, but whereas most people were flipping out about how great Dragon Age was last year, this is my RPG series of choice and I can’t help feeling that ol’ familiar excitement in my stomach. It met my expectations. It surpassed my expectations. I’m excited. I think you should be excited. Maybe that’s irresponsible, but I’ll be driving this hype train straight into hell. All aboard. 3
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PS4 SLIM RUMOR OR TRUTH? The PlayStation 4 isn't exactly what you'd call a large console, at least when compared to the Xbox One. But a recent leak suggest that Sony is already looking to cut the flab for an altogether slimmer model.
version arriving so soon seem a little far-fetched. The PS4 Slim could be unveiled later this year
While the images may seem realistic, with repositioned buttons, the leak doesn't include a list of updated specs. If Sony's going to create a slim console, it will need to rethink the innards The leak, courtesy of Italian website to make them fit, while still delivering VG247.it, shows leaked images which the same amount of power. appear to show a much slimmer PS4 The PS4 Slim could be unveiled later console than the one we're accusthis year tomed to. If the console is indeed real, then it's Since the PS3 has not one, but two reported to be unveiled at E3 which slimmer versions, it's feasible for takes place June 16th-18th this year. Sony to produce a bingo wing-free Rest assured Stuff will be reporting PS4. But new versions traditionally live from the show, so we'll bring you arrived a few years after the original, any news as and when we hear it. 4and since the PS4 was released in No- http://www.stuff.tv/playstation-4/ps4-slim vember 2013, the reports of a slim
seen a very early version of Cortana in Windows 10, and the mocked up screenshot (above) gives you an idea of how Cortana currently works in Windows 10. Cortana, along with a number of other features, is still in an early form that's not ready for everyone to test. Microsoft only shared a CORTANA WILL BE IN WINDOWS 10 small number of Windows 10 features Microsoft showed off a small number today, less than 10 percent of the of Windows 10 features at the compa- overall feature set, so expect to see ny's event this morning, but one ruCortana and others arrive as the testmored one was missing: Cortana. The ing and preview builds roll out over software maker focused on some of its the coming months. desktop improvements for Windows http://www.theverge.com 10, and Cortana is one of the many changes that will be coming ahead of the final release next year. While the special Technical Preview build of Windows 10 that will be released tomorrow won't include Cortana, Microsoft is already testing the digital assistant inside of other Windows 10 builds internally. It's an early implementation, but Cortana will be fully integrated into the search experience in Windows 10. Microsoft's new Windows 10 OS has a new search button on the taskbar, and Cortana currently appears at the top of that search functionality once it's triggered. Just like Windows Phone, you can type to Cortana to ask it to remind you to do things, or to search for content locally in apps or on the web. Microsoft isn't creating a separate app for Cortana on the desktop, it will essentially replace and complement the existing search experience that's available in Windows 8. I have
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FANTASTIC 4 NEW MOVIE IN THE RISE FOR Fantastic Four (stylized as Fant4stic) is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is the third theatrical Fantastic Four film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox and a reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise. Directed by Josh Trank, the film stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, and Toby Kebbell. Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater wrote the screenplay from a story conceived by Kinberg and Trank. In Fantastic Four, the team must learn to harness their abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. In August 2009, the development of the film was announced. In July 2012, Trank was hired to direct and Slater to write the screenplay. In October 2013, Kinberg was hired as a co-writer. By January 2014, Kinberg finished rewriting the script and casting began. 6 Principal photography commenced in May 2014 and concluded in August
the same year. The film was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fantastic Four is scheduled for release on August 7, 2015 in North America, in 2D and 3D theaters.
MORTAL KOMBAT X REVIVE KITANA AND KUNG LAO Developer Midway must be listening to fan demand, because another classic character is joining the growing roster of “Mortal Kombat X.” A new “Mortal Kombat X” trailer has been released revealing the Outworld princess Kitana as the game’s latest addition to its cast of fighters. Kitana was first introduced to the gaming public in 1993’s “Mortal Kombat II,” where she appeared as young lady in a one-piece swimsuit. But she was far from a ditzy “Baywatch” beauty – her face mask and fans also meant she was a ninja! Or something like it. And because she’s technically an alien, and all aliens have special powers, she has managed to elude osteoporosis and being covered in liver spots despite being over ten thousand years old. Ah, every nerdy teenage boy’s dream. She returns in “Mortal Kombat X” with an elaborate swimsuit-like costume that likely took over an hour to put on, and with makeup that likely took twice as long to apply. She also vaguely looks more Asian this time around, which is
probably appropriate given her name sounds like it was inspired by a weapon of specifically Japanese origin. In addition to Kitana, the trailer also shows previously announced character Kung Lao in action. Kung Lao is another character who first appeared in “Mortal Kombat II.” He is known for being the cool alternative to the cheesy Bruce Lee knockoff, Liu Kang, and of course his iconic hat, which is capable of doing some really nasty things to people. Because he is a regular boring human, however, it is doubtful he has aged as gracefully as Kitana – though that certainly doesn’t stop him from throwing a thousand punches a second, as is evidenced in the video. The trailer also teases Goro, a four-armed monster who just won’t stay dead. “Mortal Kombat X” will reportedly feature a strong online element. Players will be given the choice to join any of the following five factions: White Lotus, Lin Kuei, Brotherhood of Shadows, Black Dragon, and Special Forces. Online activities will help players win points for their particular faction. http://www.gmanetwork.com
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Dise単ado por: Roderick Marin Calero