We’ve seen video game mashups before, but Ubisoft may get the medal for the zaniest.
At Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, the company announced a new take on its long running arcade motorcycle puzzler titled Trials of the Blood Dragon.
In a Ubisoft blog post, it had this to say:
“It’s been 12 years since the neon-drenched events of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and only the cybercommando children of Rex Power Colt can win Vietnam War 4. Where their father fought evil soldiers and hulking Blood Dragons in a first-person shooter, however, they’re taking a different approach, waging battle while pulling off sick stunts with a motorbike – as well as with a BMX, an eight-wheeled tank, a minecart, a jetpack, a turbo flip R/C car, a grappling hook, and their own cyber-enhanced legs.”
Trials is a physics based puzzle platforming (jumping) game with a unique twist: your character must navigate levels on a motorcycle. You must control weight distribution, speed, and torque to get over loops and other obstacles and reach to the end of the level. Over the years there have been different takes on the Trials formula, but this is probably the most unique.
In 2013 Ubisoft released Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. It was a standalone expansion that presented massively different take on the Far Cry formula, parodying 1980’s action films. It’s retro-futuristic open world was as if Tron took place in the world of Rambo, only with a lot more purple.
Trials of the Blood Dragon will be made by the same creative directors to ensure the wackiness will remain true to formula. It will once again feature music by Australian electronic music and synthwave duo Power Glove.
In a surprise reveal, Ubisoft announced that Trials of the Blood Dragon would be available today for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.