Tag: blend
Chevron showcases renewable gas blend as alternative to electric vehicles
Minecraft Legends is a curious and charming blend of adventure and RTS
There’s always been something quite comforting about loading into a brand new Minecraft world. Dropping into that first forest, punching that first tree… It’s a promise of all the myriad adventures to come. And despite some fundamental changes in genre and perspective, it’s something that the team behind the upcoming Minecraft Legends has tried hard to preserve.
I recently was treated to the most in-depth look so far at Minecraft Legends, in an hour-long livestream which gave us all some much needed answers on what manner of beast Legends actually is. It’s a curious blend of action adventure and RTS, one that shares Minecraft’s focus on exploration, but guides the player down a stricter, simpler path of summoning friendly mobs and constructing defences to repel a Piglin invasion. This will likely be a solid introduction to the RTS genre for a lot of players, but I came away unsure about whether the game will have enough depth to keep its prospective playerbase’s attention.
Fae Farm is a relaxing blend of farming and RPG exploration
Viewfinder draws inspiration from Portal to blend puzzles with story
Fans of excellent puzzle games like Portal and The Witness will be glad to hear that the upcoming polaroid puzzler Viewfinder draws direct inspiration from those titles, especially in how it approaches the marriage of story and narrative. PCGamesN spoke to the team at Sad Owl Studios while at WASD 2023, and learned all about how Viewfinder could be your next puzzling obsession.
MORE FROM PCGAMESN: best puzzle games, best adventure games, best story games
Lego 2K Drive looks like a bricky blend of Forza Horizon and Sonic Racing
After some early leaks these last few days, publisher 2K have officially announced Lego 2K Drive, an open-world racer that looks surprisingly awesome – if you’ll excuse the low-hanging adjective. The game features co-op, multiplayer modes, and the ability to transform between air and land vehicles, Team Sonic Racing-style. The downside? Its collection of pre-order bonuses probably needs a graph of some kind to understand.
Dredge Is an Absorbing Blend of Fishing Simulator and Survival Horror
Just a couple of hours into Dredge, Black Salt Game’s fishing-sim-meets-survival horror RPG adventure, I’ve fallen into a comfortably familiar routine. Thanks to the intriguing genre mashup’s fantastic pacing, engaging progression systems, and fun, intuitive mini-games, I’ve settled nicely into the quaint maritime town of Greater Marrow and its surrounding islands.
My angling business is thriving, as evidenced by the plentiful coin the local fishmonger pays for my daily bounties. I’m doing so well, in fact, I’ve been able to invest in a new rod – capable of plundering both shallow and coastal waters – as well as a faster outboard engine for my customizable craft.
The future looks bright too, as I’ve also earned enough research parts on my seafaring journeys to invest in even better gear. And thanks to my newfound ability to dredge supplies from the ocean’s depths, I’ve also started gathering resources that’ll eventually see my ship upgraded with more space, better lighting, and a sturdier hull.
Life for me on the beautiful archipelago is, literally, smooth sailing, so I offer to help out some of the less fortunate locals. A friendly dockworker seeks a more fulfilling existence North – on the tiny island of Steel Point – so I collect some materials for her residence before ferrying her to the new home.
I also meet a grieving man in the neighboring Little Marrow. He’s seeking closure from the loss of his son, who apparently perished in a shipwreck years prior. I dredge the wreckage, find the victim’s engraved belt buckle, and return it to his father for some peace of mind.
My extracurricular activities also find me accepting a task from a traveling merchant with an interest in rare ocean species. But with my quest log expanding as quickly as the game’s open-world map, I decide to hold off on catching and cataloging the scarce fish for now.
I’d previously accepted a more pressing assignment, from a rather mysterious chap living in a rundown mansion on nearby Blackstone Isle. I was due to check back in with him, plus his tiny island hosts a small workshop that’s been tugging at my curiosity ever since I learned it was locked up tight.
The man, who calls himself the Collector, had previously outfitted my rig with the aforementioned dredging equipment in exchange for an old handkerchief I’d found in the belly of a fish. While the deal was unquestionably odd, it came with the offer of more work: If I agreed to bring him more relics, he’d continue to reward me for my effort.
First on the docket was an old key supposedly located not far from my new home of Greater Marrow. I secured the artifact with little effort and immediately delivered it to the Collector. Strangely though, he accepted the treasure with more agitation than gratitude. Stranger still, he began flipping through a dusty old book, before a blinding beam of light shot up from its pages.
Now mind you, my unexpected encounter with this man’s seemingly magical tome was not my first brush with the strange or unexplainable in Dredge. In addition to chatting up the eccentric locals – many of whom warned me not to take my boat out after dark – I’d also caught a couple of mutated fish, including a mackerel with five eyes.
I’d also been swarmed by red-eyed ravens, had an unidentified “something” slither onto my deck, and saw my hull damaged by an illuminated, bulbous fish that was nearly as big as my boat. But while these encounters ran the gamut from somewhat unsettling to downright ominous, none interrupted my peaceful routine or provided proof of the supernatural like this ancient work the Collector now cradled in his hands.
He cryptically spoke of the book holding “power from the deep,” a claim he backed up by granting me an ability dubbed “Haste.” Described as “otherworldly speed,” the gift came at a cost. While it’d imbue my aging engine with newfound momentum, it’d also threaten to burn it out. On top of stressing my motor, though, the ability came with the foreboding promise of also straining my increasingly fragile psyche.
With my tranquil existence now turned upside down, I set out with a new sense of urgency – and fear – to track down the remaining four relics on the Collector’s list. But with my clockwork routine tossed overboard in favor of a feverish schedule, fueled by incoherent pursuits, it wasn’t long before I met my demise.
As I raced toward Gale Cliffs – where a coveted music box supposedly rests on the ocean floor – I began to appreciate the peppy benefits of the haste ability. But I also worried about my motor, which according to a rising HUD meter, was threatening to burn out.
An overheating engine was the least of my concerns, however, because – as promised – it seems my anxiety was beginning to boil over as well. As I pushed forward through a thick fog, rocks seemed to appear out of nowhere, forcing me to frantically steer clear of them. While I was able to narrowly escape these jagged obstacles, I wasn’t sure how to evade the dozens of red eyeballs that were now hovering above the water’s surface.
I ignored the menacing peepers, as I believed them to be figments of my spiraling imagination. It was more difficult to discount the massive, stretching tentacle emerging from the sea, however. I prayed the towering limb was just another sign of my character’s mind playing tricks on me, but seeing as it soon swatted me from existence – and effectively ended my demo – I’ll have to assume I’ll find more than relics lurking in Dredge’s depths when it launches later this month.
The Settlers: New Allies review: a tedious blend of management sim and RTS that simply doesn’t work
I was excited to play The Settlers: New Allies. Not so much because it’s the first Settlers game in thirteen years, but because the last game by developer Ubisoft Blue Byte was Anno 1800, the best city-builder this side of Cities: Skylines. With an evocative depiction of its simulated industrial revolution, including some delightfully chewy production-line wrangling, Anno 1800 was a treat, and I was keen to see what the Dusseldorf-based studio would cook up next.
The answer, unfortunately, is a big bowl of strategy gruel. I’m not sure what has gone wrong in the last five years, but Blue Byte clearly left whatever magic Anno 1800 had in the nineteenth century. The Settlers: New Allies is a dismal strategy affair, confused, anaemic, and achingly dull.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck blend family as they shop for Christmas trees with their kids in LA
God of War: Ragnarök casts Odin as a mob boss in a deft blend of The Last of Us and Skyrim
God of War: Ragnarök brings Kratos’ norse mythology era to a close, but not before spending a good 40-50 hours being one of the best Sony third-person action games to date: something that moves the genre forward in terms of artistry and tech wizardry, but also in how its characters are portrayed.
As a drama, it runs the entire tonal gamut from prestige HBO drama to Wrestlemania, being stuffed with some of the best action spectacle that the series has ever offered (which is something of an achievement, given that the entire series kicks off with Kratos leaping across a shipwrecked fleet to kill a hydra), but also plenty of quiet, reflective moments which allow the pacing to breathe.
It also provides a wonderfully unique take on the gods themselves. In this portrayal, Odin comes across like the head of a crime family, something akin to Tony Soprano or Vito Corleone: powerful, yet afraid. Jealously guarding his status, willing to make huge sacrifices to protect his wealth, but ultimately ill-equipped to resist the changing times. It stands in stark contrast to the heroic, benevolent alien version of the character we have seen in things like Marvel’s MCU. But, dare I say it, it’s probably much closer to the source material: the old gods were hard to please.