Europe: PS+ April 2014

Aw yeah! The PlayStation Plus line-up for April has been announced, one of my favourite times of the month. As always, you will be getting five free games if you are a member of PlayStation Plus. Many of last month’s games will be leaving the Instant Game Collection, so be sure to pick up Tomb Raider and the other games if you haven’t done that yet. Alright, so what’s in store for you this month and is it just as good as the previous months?

Mercenary Kings (PS4)

We haven’t seen any triple A games so far for the PlayStation 4, but the console hasn’t been out for that long. First up is Mercenary Kings for the PlayStation 4, an 8-bit indie shooter that should give you the retro feel, yet the game runs very smooth and this makes it very pleasant to look at. If you are up some arcade shooter action, you are in luck with this month’s free game. The game also features multiplayer, which is almost mandatory in shooters nowadays.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 (PS3)Most soccer fans around the world have probably played both a FIFA or PES game once, but the majority of the people that I know choose to play FIFA. If you are one of those people, you can give PES another go (for free) now. PES 2014 promised more ball control and better gameplay, yet it fails to deliver. Artificial Intelligence still is one of the weakest points of the game, and it just doesn’t stand up to it’s competitor FIFA.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (PS3 & PS Vita)You might remember Sly Cooper back from the PlayStation 2, as that is where the game made its first appearance. This cell-shaded platformer game takes you back in time: re-live your youth by playing this game and actual time-travelling in the game. Time travelling? Yep Sly Cooper has to travel back in time and do what he’s good at: stealing shinies! Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time also supports Cross Buy, Cross Play and Cross Save, so you do not have to worry about missing any action if you have a PS Vita.

Hotline Miami (PS3 & PS Vita)

Have you ever watched the movie Drive? Did you enjoy it? If you did, you will most likely enjoy Hotline Miami as well. This 2D indie game has everything that you can wish for in an indie game, except if you don’t really .. like blood and violence (you should probably skip this game in that case, just saying). Hotline Miami has an amazing soundtrack and an awesome 80’s feel, mix this together with top-down 2D action and you have one of the best indie games out there. The game also has Cross Buy enabled, so you can play it on both your PS3 and PS Vita.

MotoGP 13

Another racing game is added to the list of PlayStation Plus games, and this motor racing game delivers what it should: a good motor racing experience. It definitely isn’t the easier racing game out there and you really need to practice if you want to be able to ride on the faster bikes. If you are into motor bikes, you will most likely enjoy this game. If you aren’t a real fan of motor racing, you might find the game a bit too hard, but you can always try it out of course.

Be sure to pick up the games that are leaving the Instant Game Collection of PlayStation Plus before the 2nd of April:

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition (PS4)
Tomb Raider (PS3)
Borderlands 2 (PS3)
Pixeljunk Monsters Ultimate HD (PS Vita)

Smart As (PS Vita)

Facebook buys the Oculus Rift

Facebook is on a on a money-spending streak: last month it acquired WhatsApp and just today it has purchased Oculus VR, the company behind the successful Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift. Facebook has paid 2 billion US dollars for the company, and I am pretty sure that you could say that it makes it one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever. Mark Zuckerberg just announced the takeover on his personal Facebook page, something the founder of Facebook tends to do when Facebook makes a major takeover.

Although the company hasn’t released a product that is ready for the public yet, Facebook trusts that Oculus VR will deliver a final product that will amaze the world. Virtual reality has a big chance to become gaming’s next thing, or even its future and Mark Zuckerberg knows this very well. Zuckerberg states that Facebook will not interfere with the current developing process of the Oculus Rift for gaming, which I personally think is a very good thing to hear:

“Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.”

Since Facebook is still a communication platform, Zuckerberg also looks at the Oculus Rift as a communication device, as he describes it as a “new communication device”. Facebook has a lot of funds to support the development of the Oculus Rift, and this will most likely result in a better product with more features, but it's unsure if Facebook has different ideas about the Oculus Rift than the creators had in mind. I just hope that Facebook won't interfere too much with what the creators want from the device.

With Sony also announcing their own virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, virtual reality is closer than ever before. Although PlayStation’s virtual reality headset, code-named Morpheus, won’t be coming on the market anytime soon, it’s a fact that virtual reality will become something for the masses. It will take some time for it to become perfect, but that time is well worth it.

A lot of backers of the original Kickstarter campaign aren't too happy about the takeover of Oculus VR. They feel betrayed by Oculus VR and think that Facebook won't do any good to the Oculus Rift.

Did Zuckerberg buy himself another golden ticket to success once again? He probably did. Zuckerberg also stated that he cannot wait on virtual reality becoming .. well, reality. And neither can’t I!

Disney is now the producer of PewDiePie, Game Grumps and more

Disney is no longer just the producer of children movies such as The Little Mermaid and Frozen, the last few years the company has started to focus more and more on gaming and action movies. The Walt Disney Company already bought both Marvel and Lucasarts for 4 billion US dollars, and today it has also bought Maker Studios. You might not be familiar with Maker Studios itself, but you probably do know one of these: PewDiePie, Game Grumps or TotalBiscuit.

Maker Studios is the producer of these and 55.000 other YouTube channels, and is now owned by The Walt Disney Company after they paid about 500 million US dollars for it. All these channels combined have a total of 5.5 billion views each month and over 380 million subscribers in total. Maker Studios gets a small cut of the profits on the ads that run on the videos of these channels, but what does Maker Studios exactly do? It’s pretty simple, they take care of all the promotion, merchandising, royalty-free music in the videos and the technical support. This way the YouTubers can focus on their channel and on making quality content.

At the moment it’s what the effect of this takeover has on the channels that are connected to Maker Studios. YouTuber TotalBiscuit posted the following on his Twitter page: “Yup, Disney now owns Maker so also owns Polaris. No idea what this means for us, but I’ll make the content I want to make or go elsewhere”.

It wouldn’t be a wise move of Disney to force channels to drastically change the way they produce content, as the channels are able to leave Maker Studios. I also doubt that we will suddenly see a lot of Disney content on these channels, as Disney might just want to learn what teenagers watch and analyze their online behaviour. As a YouTube channel you can see the race, age, what country the viewer is from and how long the viewer has watched the video and this data may be of use to Disney.

But who knows what Disney has in mind with this purchase, but I am sure we shouldn’t worry about it too much. The chance is big that Disney just wants to have a market share on a profitable business on the internet, like they are also trying to get a share on the gaming market with Disney Infinity.

Six Awesome Online Free to Play Games

Free to Play, isn’t that just a fantastic phrase? Since a few years there has been a huge boost in the number of F2P games on the market, some bad but luckily there are enough that are pretty fun! To save you the effort of digging through all these games yourself and finding the gems, here are 6 online free to play games that you should definitely give a try.

Path of Exile

Did you love Diablo I and II, but just couldn’t get yourself to enjoy Diablo III? If this is the case, you might want to give Path of Exile a try (you can also give it a try if you did like Diablo III of course). If you are familiar with Path of Exile, you know that the game has a lot of influences from the Diablo series: it is basically the same type of game. Areas are randomly generated, making sure that you don’t come across the same area twice. The game has a variety of classes, each with different skillsets and abilities. So if you are up for an old-school looting game, try it out.

Is Path of Exile pay-to-win? No, paying with real currencies doesn’t give you any advantages in the game. However, you can still buy cosmetic changes and such with real currencies if you feel like it and if you want to support the game developers.

Dota 2 & League of Legends

Both of these games are very similar, and there is quite a chance that you already know about these games. Both games are MOBA’s, what stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The games places you in a map where there are 2 battling teams that both consist of five players. Every player controls a certain Hero character that has different abilities and the possibility to buy items and gain levels during the match. The goal of the games is to destroy the opponent team’s base. But to get that far, you will first have to destroy enemy towers that are powerful and block your way. This is where your minions come in: they take the damage, while you deal the damage. Up for a highly competitive game? In that case pick either Dota 2 or League of Legends.

Are these games pay-to-win: Everything in the games that is necessary to beat your opponents is purchasable with in-game currency, which you can obtain by playing the game.  You can of course skip this and just pay for a nice hero if you can’t wait at all, but if you have some patience you will be able to  unlock what your heart desires - it might just take a little longer.

Hearthstone Remember the good ol’ days, when everyone was collecting cards and you were trying to tell your younger neighbour kid how awesome that Rattata card was? You can get those times back (minus the neighbour kid) if you try out Blizzard’s new card game Heartstone. The game is fairly easy to get into, as you will have to complete 7 tutorial levels which explain the basics of the game. The game has quick matches that last between 5 or 10 minutes most of the times, which makes it a great game to play if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands.

Is Hearthstone pay-to-win? In some way, it is yes. With real currency you can buy booster packs which contain cards, but you can also buy these booster packs for gold that you slowly earn in the game. Buying the booster packs with real money surely makes it a lot easier to have a chance on getting decent cards as you can buy a lot of packs which equals more chance on receiving a nice card.

In some way it is, yes. You can buy booster packs with real money, and it takes a lot longer to obtain these booster packs by just using in-game gold. As the game heavily relies on the cards, it is easier to ‘win’ good cards if you buy a lot of booster pack with real money.

RuneScape There is quite a chance that you are familiar with RuneScape, but there is a chance that you have literally no idea what it is. RuneScape is a browser-based MMO game that is made with Java. It isn't the most beautiful game out there, but that shouldn't run the fun for most people. Unlike most MMO's out there, you won't have to choose a class in the game. In total the game has 26 different different skills, and you can level all of them to the maximum level. Most of the skills speak for themselves, such as Attack, Strength and Herblore.

The economy in the game is also very important, as you can literally buy any piece of equipment you want if you have the right amount of gold. This doesn’t mean it is easy to get rich though, you can either gather items yourself and sell them; or be a smart merchant and get rich by merchanting.

Is RuneScape pay-to-win? No, but once you become a member you will have access to all 26 skills and you will be able to travel to areas that are locked for non-members. So becoming a member definitely comes with benefits, but you won’t be able to use any of these benefits in non-member worlds. Sounds pretty fair!

Blacklight: Retribution

Do you love shooters, customizing your loadout and you are  craving for a fast-paced game? If you answered yes to all these questions, Blacklight: Retribution might be the thing you are looking for. The game allows you to assemble your own weapons and this is a very important aspect of the game as it has a lot of customization options. When you are putting your weapon or outfit together, the game gives you very exact numbers of what each upgrade of your weapon.

The game is, as I stated earlier, a pretty fast paced game: you can compare the speed to a game such as Call of Duty. However, this isn’t your average shooter. Just as in the recently released Titanfall game, you are able to ‘summon’ huge mechanical robots and you are able to climb inside of these powerful beasts. You also have the ability to look through walls for a short amount of time, which forces you to play different than you would play in your average FPS.

Is Blacklight: Retribution pay-to-win? You can definitely make it easier to obtain weapons and armour if you use real currency, but you can still devastate your opponents without paying a dime. I’ve seen a lot of players that haven’t spend a single cent on the game, and still manage to always end in the top 3 of a match. Blacklight requires skill and if you don’t put any effort into it, yet you buy the best weapons with real money, you will still fail at the game. In my eyes, it definitely isn’t pay-to-win as you can obtain everything without opening your wallet.

Guide: How to become a PC Gamer

So you got yourself a sweet PC gaming rig or you are thinking about building one yourself, where do you start from there? What are some good quality games that you should give a try and where do you find reviews for games? And of course, where should you get the games from? All these questions and more will be explained in this post, and PC gaming might become a bit more accessible for you.

Building your own Gaming

If you don’t feel like paying a couple thousand bucks for a decent gaming PC such as an Alienware desktop, you have probably considered building your own rig. If you have decided you are going to build your own gaming PC, you will most likely have a maximum amount of money in your mind that this gaming PC can cost. If this is the case, you should keep on reading.

Logical Increments is the place to be if you want to know what parts you should get. The website works in price tiers and should give you a good idea of the parts that fit in your price category. Logical Increments also offers an explanation of every part in your PC, such as the motherboard and the CPU. It also has a bunch of links on how to correctly assemble your PC by yourself, that might come in handy as well.

What games should you get? You’ve finally build that monster of a gaming PC, but you don’t have any games yet. Don’t worry, there are enough sites around the web that will make choosing some good games a lot easier. Take Metacritic as an example, this website has a database of most of the games that have ever been released. On the Metacritic website you can read professional reviews as well as reviews from registered users. Some users just give games they dislike a 1 out of 10, but it’s easy to spot the reviews that are honestly written. If you want to read other full reviews of games, you can always resort to websites such as IGN and GameSpot.

Where do I buy my games?In the store, obviously? Luckily we are living in 2014 and there is no need to get out of our comfy chairs nowadays. Platforms such as Steam and Origin make it as easy as possible to buy games online. Both platforms have most of the mainstream games, but if you want to find older or indie games, you can always try GOG.com or Humble Bundle. Not feeling like you want to spend a lot of money on games just yet? Luckily Steam has quite a few good and fun games that are free to play, they are definitely worth checking out.

What does Triple Buffering or CSAA x16 even mean?So you’ve bought yourself a few games, and when you go to the graphics settings you will spot many words of which you most likely don’t know the meaning of. Don’t worry, there are enough smart people on the internet that have made guides for you to understand these strange words. One of the most accessible guides that I have come across of is this one from LifeHacker. Another good guide that should explain all these settings is one from Reddit, and after reading it through you will feel a lot more at home with PC gaming.

Do you have any websites to share that might come in handy for PC gamers? Don’t be shy and share them in the comment section!

Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm details emerge in video

It has been an exciting week for Blizzard fans with the the launch of Hearthstone and more info about the the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. But what is even more exciting is that Blizzard has showed us some alpha footage of their upcoming MOBA game Heroes of the Storm. The nearly 9 minute long video walks you through the game and shows some of its features, such as daily quests (oh no!) and its leveling system.

So what are these quests exactly? Quests are specific challenges that grant XP as well as gold to your account. Quests in Heroes of the Storm can differ from winning two matches as a certain character to capturing towers during a match. These daily quests can also be hero specific, and completing these quests can grant you new skins for the hero. That’s not where it ends though, some quests even unlock additional modes and features. It’s pretty clear that Blizzard intends to make this questing system a core part of the game.

Another core part of any MOBA game are the playable heroes, and this isn't any different in Heroes of the Storm. If you have played any other Blizzard game, you will definitely feel familiar with some of the heroes as they come from games such as Warcraft and Diablo. The heroes that you can select once you are starting a match are the ones that you have purchased, or that in the current free hero rotation. The hero rotation consists of a few heroes that are free to play with for a selected amount of time, and when this period ends a new batch of heroes will be free to play with.

There currently are three different games modes: Practice Mode, Cooperative Mode and Versus Mode. Practice mode puts you in a match to fight together and against computer controlled enemies. Cooperative mode is practically the same, except that your team will consist of other human players. The most important mode is still Versus, since this is the game mode that will queue you and your team against other human players. This all is pretty standard for a MOBA game and we didn't expect anything else but seeing these game modes in Heroes of the Storm as well.

Since Heroes of the Storm is a free-to-play game and Blizzard is a company that has its mind on profit, a cash shop was a feature that we would know it would appear in the game. The in-game shop will allow you to buy heroes, skins and mounts. If you are thinking of buying a hero, a skin or mount, Blizzard has been nice enough to let you try it out first. Prices vary for everything in the game, and you will be able to pay with real currency as well as with in-game gold that you earn by winning matches. Blizzard explicitly mentions that the current prices are a work in progress and will probably change in the future. Currently $3,99 equals 2000 gold and $9,99 is the same as 10000 gold. The prices for skins and heroes aren't low for a reason, as most people would just save up some gold instead of grabbing their wallet.

We will see what the future brings, but it is clear that League of Legends and DotA2 should get prepared for the new and strong competitor that is on its way. Check out the official video below to hear and look at the smaller details of Blizzard's upcoming Heroes of the Storm.

The Witcher 3: New Release Date

It was planned that 2014 would be the year that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would be released, but CD Projekt Red has made a sad but understandable announcement about the release of the game. The role-playing game The Witcher 3 won't be released in 2014, the game is now set to be released in February of 2015.

The delay of the release of the game doesn't have to be seen as something bad, but it's understandable that fans would've seen the game be released on time. Why isn't it something bad? CD Projekt Red says that they need more time for the game. To guarantee a polished and fine-tuned game, CD Projekt Red is moving the release date of The Witcher 3 with a few months as you can read in this open letter from CD Projekt Red itself.

CD Projekt Red also states that they could have released the game in the fall of 2014, as you can read in this quote from the open letter. "We recently reexamined what we have achieved thus far, and faced a choice about the game's final release date. The decision we made was difficult, thorougly considered, and ultimately clear and obvious. We could have release the game towards the end of this year as we had initially planned. Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release of the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for February 2015."

In the open letter the board of CD Projekt Red apologizes to their stockholders and the gamers. Five of the most important people at the studio emphasize that the delay will only result in a better game in the end. After all, we gamers want good games, not games that could have been way better if the developers would have taken more time. We are sure that this delay will only result in a better and more enjoyable game and that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be just as good, or even better, than it's predecessors.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be released for the PC, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Just as the previous games you take control of the ‘Witcher’ Geralt of Rivia, and in this game you will be hunting dark creatures, while there is also a war at hand between the Northern Kingdoms and the Empire of Nilfgraad. What are your thoughts about the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? Are you disappointed in CD Projekt Red or do you think that they have made the right decision?

Europe: PS+ March 2014

It’s a another beautiful month for PlayStation Plus subscribers, since Sony is once again being really generous this month with the games that you will be getting with your PlayStation Plus subscription. Sony is giving PlayStation Plus subscribers five games this month: one for the PS4, two for the PS3 and also two games for the PS Vita.

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition (PS4)
Do you like shooting zombi-.. Okay, that is a silly question, since everyone loves shooting zombies (or hacking them in pieces with an axe or a machete). Dead Nation is a top-down zombie survival shooter that can be played locally and online with two players. Purchase new weapons with the money that you earn by shooting zombies, doesn’t that just sound delightful?

Tomb Raider (PS3)

This is last year’s reboot of the popular Tomb Raider franchise, and the game starts the story from scratch: you are a young Lara Croft that has to survive on a mysterious island. If you enjoyed the Uncharted games, you will probably have no problem to play this game as it has a lot of similarities.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PS3)

The other game for the PS3 this month is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. In this story based adventure game you take control of two brothers, who will move simultaneously and have to solve puzzles. The game has received multiple prices, such as Best Xbox Game of 2013 (it competed with games such as GTA V and Tomb Raider - so yes, it is a pretty good game).

Pixeljunk Monsters Ultimate HD (PS Vita)

This Tower Defense game gives you all the content from the original PS3 game and HD levels from the PSP version. Constructing towers in the beautifully cartoon world of Pixeljunk is definitely not a punishment, so pick this up as soon as you can.

Smart As (PS Vita)

Are you a genius and do you sometimes feel like you want to show it to the world? Or do you want to become one? Smart As is the perfect game for you in that case! This brain-training PS Vita only title is made to be played once a day so you can make yourself a bit smarter every day. The game consists of 20 individual mini games with 4 different difficulty levels.

The games will be entering the PlayStation Store on the 5th of March, and it will replace five other games. So if you haven’t added any of the following games yet from previous months yet, be sure to download them before the 5th of March. Adding games to your PlayStation Plus library is also possible through the PlayStation Store website now, no need to turn on your PlayStation device for it!

List of games leaving the PlayStation:

- Outlast (or Sound Shapes if Outlast wasn't available in your country)

- Metro Last Light

- Dynasty Warriors Next

- Guacamelee!

- ModNation Racers Road Trip