As is customarily the case with games after they pass certification and are approved for manufacturing and distribution, upcoming third-person action-RPG The Surge 2 has gone gold. Charge your controllers and fine-tune you hand-eye coordination ahead of the game’s PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One launch on September 24.

The game’s official Twitter account shared the news, congratulating all of the developers at Deck13 Interactive for their long and hard work. Along with the tweet came an accolades trailer with a bunch of pull quotes from various outlets like Eurogamer and IGN Spain.

Pre-orders for The Surge 2, which retails for approximately $60 USD / £50 GBP / $90 AUD, are available now. Doing so secures you the exclusive URBN Gear Pack, which comes packaged with the well-used Cutter from The Surge, a full-body armor set, the URBN Judgement Axe, the URBN Skimmer Drone, a Radar Module, and a unique online message icon.

We had the opportunity to go hands-on with a preview demo of The Surge 2. While we found combat to be an improvement over its predecessor, our experience with The Surge 2 demo was hampered by the lack of enemy variety. We said of the demo, “It’s disappointing to not see more unique enemy types in the early hours of The Surge 2. Hopefully, more will be added further into the story, as some of the battles near the end of The Surge 2 demo were beginning to feel repetitive.”

• Grab The Surge 2 on PC
• Grab The Surge 2 on PS4
• Grab The Surge 2 on Xbox One

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from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-surge-2-has-gone-gold/1100-6469158/

Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online have lots of secrets to discover, and now dedicated fans have found yet another one of them. The new Diamond Casino update for GTA Online contains a special mission that is apparently only accessible by getting really, really drunk.

As explained by Kotaku, here’s how it works: First, you must own a penthouse in the Diamond Casino because that’s how you get the ability to play story missions through the update. After you’ve done that, visit the public bar or your own penthouse bar and starting knocking back shots of Macbeth Whisky. The goal here is to get so wasted that you black out and wake up somewhere else.

You can wake up in all manner of different places, so the trick with this Easter Egg seems to be to simply keep destroying your character’s liver with booze until you trigger the mission. Try enough times and you may eventually wake up outside, far away from the Casino, with paramedics tending to you after your big night of partying.

The casino manager calls you and asks, “So, how’s the hangover?” In your drunken stupor you borrowed a Pisswasser beer truck and the manager, Ms. Baker, says she’ll be more forgiving if you bring it back to her at the Casino. She also cracks a joke about how you were such a drunken jerk without ever saying a word, which is a reference to how GTA Online characters do not speak.

Complete the mission and Ms. Baker says to you, “Congratulations. Your damage limitation skills are second to none.”

The reward for completing the mission is the ability to take on more missions. Check out the video above from YouTube user Ice InfluX to see the secret mission in action. A second secret Casino mission was also discovered, and–you guessed it–it also involves getting sloshed.

GTA Online’s Diamond Casino update launched at the end of July, and it’s proven to be wildly popular. After the update was released, GTA Online had its most players ever, which is a remarkable achievement given that the game was released in 2013.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gta-5-online-secret-mission-unlocks-when-you-get-r/1100-6469160/

Studio Wildcard’s dinosaur game Ark: Survival Evolved is one of gaming’s biggest success stories in recent years. By the developer’s latest count, it’s sold 16 million copies across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, with ten million more installs on mobile where it’s free.

Part of what makes the game’s ongoing success so noteworthy is that the title does not offer loot boxes or skins, instead opting to sell big, premium expansions that help the game enjoy sustained revenue that funds future development.

Studio Wildcard co-founder Jesse Rapczak told GI.biz that Ark enjoys a “sustainable revenue model” by way of launching one or two major “premium updates” each year.

“We don’t sell skins, we don’t sell upgrade packs,” he said. “But Ark is an online game with official servers and a lot of costs to keep the game running. It’s important to us to always be bringing in new players, and part of that is creating new content for the existing ones so they bring in their friends.”

Ark has welcomed three expansions to date: Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction. The next big one is called Genesis, and it will be released in two parts starting in Fall 2020.

Rapczak said he feels “a little bit justified” about the decision to release premium expansions instead of chasing microtransactions like many other big games do. “It feels good when people want to pay for what you’re creating, rather than them feeling like they’re getting nickeled, dimed and swindled a little, which is I think what happens when you have loot boxes and tack on those mechanics to something they’ve already paid for,” he said.

Free-to-play mechanics in full-price games can be problematic and challenging–for players and the developer alike, Rapczak said.

“If players have already paid for the game and you’re adding on these sorts of free-to-play mechanics, it’s kind of annoying,” he said. “And you’re also doubling your work, because you have to make sure the base game is great enough that people want to spend money on it, and then you also have to figure out how to entice them to spend further money on the game. I guess that’s why the big companies like EA, Ubisoft and whoever are willing to tackle that, but there’s been a lot of issues with that. For indies and medium-sized companies, it’s not the thing to try and pursue.”

Microtransaction systems, while controversial, can be big business. For example, NBA 2K19 was sharply criticized for its use of microtransactions, but the game went on to become the best-selling NBA 2K game ever, with its microtransaction revenue rising 140%. Just recently, Destiny 2 developer Bungie explained how microtransactions are good for the game.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-ark-survival-evolved-became-a-big-success-with/1100-6469153/

The indie platformer A Hat In Time released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2017, but now the game is preparing for renewed life with its Nintendo Switch debut. The throwback to classic 3D platformers will be available on October 18 for $40, and pre-orders for the physical copy are now available through Amazon.

A Hat In Time ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, promising a “3D collect-a-thon platformer” in the vein of Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. The Nintendo Switch version is coming later than the others, but given that it’s an homage to the classics of Nintendo platforms, fans may have been waiting for the Switch version.

The game received generally positive reviews on GameSpot sister site Metacritic, including good marks from GameSpot’s A Hat In Time review. Kallie Plagge said that the first world was uninspired, but after that the game came into its own with charming, low-impact exploration and doodad-collecting.

“A Hat in Time is slow to start, but it’s brimming with the charm and collectible-finding joy of classic 3D platformers,” she wrote. “Collectibles are both fun to find and help guide you to the game’s best secrets, and seeing everything there is to see is its own reward. The platforming isn’t particularly challenging, nor does it do anything especially new, but A Hat in Time’s cleverly themed worlds and witty quips lend it a more contemporary feel that’s just right for satisfying a 3D platforming craving.”

See it at Amazon

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from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/a-hat-in-time-nintendo-switch-release-date-announc/1100-6469147/