Certified Gamer Boy
Certified Gamer Boy
Edition 39 - August 30th to September 5th
Good morning gamers. We can’t believe it’s already September! Time flies.
The Dead Space remake is real and it looks amazing. We’ve also got some new Marvel’s Midnight Suns details for you, and if that’s not enough, let’s take a look at the rise of YouTube Gaming. Thanks for reading and cheers to overachieving!
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Dead Space Remake
Dead Space is a survival horror video game that launched in 2008, and was developed by EA Redwood Shores and published by Electronic Arts. It is now being remade by EA’s Motive Studios.
EA’s Motive Studios team gave the fans an early look at the development of the remake on a livestream last week. According to the stream, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles allowed them to make heavy improvements to the gameplay. The entire Ishimura ship is now seamless with no loading screens. EA Motive Studios even shared a side by side comparison of an original level to the remake.
What about the Story? The core story will remain unchanged in the remake. However, it will be expanded to help take a closer look at the Dead Space Universe and its characters.
Isaac Clarke will continue to be voiced by Gunner Wright. Isaac was mostly silent in Dead Space 1 but Wright did the voice over for him in Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3. Isaac’s dialogue will function as so:
Isaac will primarily only speak when spoken to.
Isaac will sometimes speak in a situation where it would feel weird if he remained silent.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns - Details Revealed
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is the next big superhero video game primed for a March 2022 release. The initial reveal trailer at last month’s Gamescom event only showcased game engine footage. Fast forward a week and Marvel has released a first-look into the superhero themed tactical RPG’s gameplay. Here’s what we know,
Gameplay Details
The game uses a card-based strategy combat system with randomized ability cards that can be upgraded. These cards help you in battle.
Players mainly control a new superhero called “The Hunter”, a highly customizable original character with access to over 40 different abilities.
Players choose three other Marvel heroes to fight alongside them. Their abilities are randomized in each fight and team composition is critical.
There will be an open area called the Abbey, a living hub that the player is able to navigate in real time. It’s a place where you can live alongside and develop relationships with the other Marvel heroes. The Abbey includes exploration opportunities and side stories to help players unlock powerful rewards.
The game's environments are taken from various iconic Marvel locations including the Avengers Tower and Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum.
Content Details
The lore is inspired by the ‘90s Marvel Comic series “The Midnight Sons”. Lilith, the Mother of All Demons was resurrected by Hydra and is using her army of demons to bring back her master. The Avengers use dark magic to awaken The Hunter, the forsake child of Lilith and the only known hero to have defeated her once before.
12 Marvel heroes will be available at launch including members from the Avengers and X-Men.
There will be no micro-transaction system related to the card-based combat system. Only cosmetic skins will be available for purchase.
The Rise of YouTube Gaming
Twitch has been the biggest video live streaming service since it launched in June of 2011. Multiple companies have attempted to launch their own platforms such as Microsoft (Mixer), Facebook Gaming and YouTube Gaming without much success. Mixer even lured streamers like Ninja and Shroud to their platform and it still shut down in June of 2020.
Last week popular Twitch streamers Timthetatman and DrLupo joined YouTube Gaming leaving behind 7 million and 4.5 million followers respectively. The two streamers signed lucrative deals to join the platform with more streamers expected to follow. Popular streamer Nickmercs also alluded to a potential change to YouTube Gaming on a recent stream.
What happened to Twitch? Twitch banned popular streamer Dr Disrespect without providing him a reason. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) several streamers received copyright strikes putting them in jeopardy of losing their accounts. Another major issue is the influx of “hot tub” streamers, where girls are streaming from hot tubs in bikinis while “just chatting”. Unfortunately, these “hot tub” streamers are being promoted on the front page of Twitch over normal content creators. This week the #ADayOffTwitch initiative saw streamers protest the platform over the hate raids that have taken place over the last few weeks.
Is YouTube the future of live streaming? It could be but there is a lot of work that has to be done. YouTube has 2.3 billion active users while Twitch only has 140 million unique monthly visitors. This means that YouTube has more discoverability potential for creators. Unfortunately, the live streaming service needs several improvements to allow for a better viewing and streaming experience.
Esports Corner
Old Friends, Familiar Foes
Hector “Hecz” Rodriguez, the founder and CEO of OpTic Gaming is one of the most recognizable faces in esports. With the help of NRG Esports, he was able to regain control of the OpTic brand from Immortals and brought them back into competitive Call of Duty as the Chicago Huntsman. According to recent developments, Hecz is reportedly in discussions with long-time friend (and competitor) Mike “Hastr0” Rufail of Envy Gaming to acquire the brand. The goal is for Envy to purchase OpTic Gaming, retire their current Dallas Empire brand and merge the two teams together to form a new Dallas-based team. In a separate piece of news, OpTic and FaZe have announced a limited-time merch collaboration that will see them release special edition items that celebrate the history of their “brotherly relationship”.
Halo Esports is Making a Comeback
The Halo Infinite multiplayer release is officially set for December 8th and the competitive community is incredibly excited about it. Tashi, Halo’s lead esports producer revealed the list of partnered teams and their rosters in his most recent “Designing the Halo Esports Ecosystem” blog post. The teams that will be competing in the first year of Halo Infinite esports includes Cloud9, Team Envy, eUnited, FaZe Clan, Fnatic, G2 Esports, NaVi, Sentinels and Spacestation Gaming. These initial partnered teams were chosen because they expressed interest in being part of the long-term Halo community, but the 2022 Halo Championship Series will continue to add new teams as the year goes on. Team partnerships will only benefit teams through in-game financial opportunities like content bundles and cosmetics, and no unfair competitive advantage will be given.
Overwatch League 2022 Update
A few weeks ago we mentioned a rumour that was circulating where sources suggested that the Overwatch League was planning to take a one year hiatus from competitive play. Those rumours were quickly dismissed but Blizzard was unable to offer any details for their upcoming plans. Jon Spector, Overwatch League VP at Blizzard took to Twitter late last week to confirm that their current plan is for the league to begin in April 2022 using an early build of Overwatch 2. This is big news for the future of Overwatch Esports and it offers valuable insight into the potential release window of Overwatch 2 (which is rumoured to release at the end of Q2 2022).
Game Review - Sonic Colors: Ultimate
Most of us grew up playing some sort of Sonic The Hedgehog video game. Sonic always seems to give off that nostalgic feeling, which led us to try out this game. The remake of the 2010 classic did not announce itself as one of the best Sonic games of all-time. Unfortunately, the remake didn’t add enough new content to really separate itself from the original Wii game. The 30FPS Nintendo Switch version of the game has several visual glitches, game crashes and more. These bugs and more could be part of the reason why the physical release date of the game was delayed across Europe. We give Sonic Colors: Ultimate a score of C-.
Gaming Roundup
DC FanDome is returning on October 16, 2021. The event will feature new reveals from Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The event is also expected to have more information about the Fortnite and Batman collaboration.
Actor Norman Reedus says they’re doing a second Death Stranding game and negotiations are underway. Reedus has hinted multiple times at collaborating with Hideo Kojima once again.
Microsoft reportedly paid Square Enix $100M for Rise of the Tomb Raider to be a timed Xbox exclusive. The game sold 1 million copies in its first 2 months.
The Call of Duty Online servers have been officially shut down due to declining revenue and lack of support by Activision. Instead, players in China will be encouraged to play Call of Duty Mobile.
China has introduced a new set of regulations that limits the amount of time kids under the age of 18 can play video games to one hour a day (between 8pm-9pm) and only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will be arriving on October 5th. The game will have 20 unique levels and feature local and online multiplayer support. The character list was leaked here.
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