Dark Souls II Release Date Announced

At the Tokyo Game Show, From Software has announced the release date for the hotly anticipated Dark Souls II.

For the US, the game will be available on March 11th and in the UK/EU it'll be out a few days later on March 14th.

From also announced two special edition bundles for the game. The first of which is the "Black Armour Edition" which comes in a steel book case and features a bonus CD with the game's original orchestral soundtrack.

The major announcement is the Collector's Edition, which I'm very interested in. The Collector's Edition comes with:

- A 12inch statue of the "Warrior Knight"

- Original Art book

- A cloth map of the game world

- Original sound track

- A steel book case

From Software also announced that the game will be coming for the PC too, though it'll be after the console release as FromSoft are keen not to repeat the slight missteps of the PC release of the original Dark Souls.

Don't forget as well, if you're in the EU and you own a PS3, you can register for the Dark Souls II beta test that is due to kick off in October.

It's a good time to be a Souls fan

Read More

Grand Theft Auto V Playthrough

It's here, it's finally here!

GTA V released yesterday to much fanfare, hooplah and sick days around the world. Here at The Gadget Addicts, we've been giving it some hands on love, starting at about 1am on Tuesday the 17th, we're that committed to bringing you great content as soon as we physically can.

So here it is, our playlist as we progress through the first few hours of the game. It's very brilliant and we really do recommend you pick up a copy. A full review will be incoming in the next few days. For now though, see how not to play GTA V

Read More

AverMedia Game Capture HD Unboxing

Yes, that's right, it's new gadget day here at The Gadget Addicts. Frankly, it's the best part of our week when we can pop to the post office and collect some new fangled piece of technology to play with.

This week, it's a particularly special gadget, as this one is actually going to help us provide you with more content.

The AverMedia Game Capture HD is going to allow us to capture footage directly from game consoles to provide to you lovely people out there in the internet. We're planning lots of cool footage, including looks at Grand Theft Auto 5, me singularly failing at Dark Souls and playthroughs of some of the biggest games of the year.

So for now, sit back and enjoy me unbox our latest gadget. Be sure to head over to YouTube and like, comment or subscribe to the channel so you never miss a new video upload.

Read More

Grand Theft Auto 5: The Big Preview

"Hey cousin, you want to go bowling?"

Seven words that summed up GTA4 for me. It was a game that had unlimited potential and it was completely and utterly broken from the start.

GTA4 for me was Grand Theft Auto with an identity crisis. On the last generation, Rockstar had outdone themselves with the sprawling mass of conurbation and countryside that was San Andreas. They had pushed the PS2 and Xbox to absolute breaking point to deliver one of the defining games of a generation.

How the hell do you follow that up?

GTA4 suffered in a myriad of ways. For a start, the move back to Liberty City immediately meant that the game would be restricted. Rockstar had already defined the three island structure in GTA3, so although it was significantly bigger, it still kept that same structure. 

Then came the characters. Whereas CJ's San Andreas revenge story was halfway believable and you could relate to him, Niko Bellic was the polar opposite. An Eastern European former soldier, haunted by his past with an annoying sociopath of a cousin. It's hardly Shakespeare...

But the one overriding irritation with GTA4 was that it constantly bombarded you with other shit to do while you were on a mission. Sure Niko would automatically blow Roman off, but my god, it was annoying to have him just ring you up and ask you to go bowling or play pool or get drunk.

So now it comes to pass that 5 years later, GTA 5 is about to land. We're going back to San Andreas for sun, fun and massive heists. Oh and one of the most ambitious multiplayer sections ever conceived for a console game.

So what do we know? Well, there are three characters to play this time round:

Michael - the retired crook and failing family man

Trevor - former pilot and massive abuser of drugs 

Franklin - car mechanic and potential gangbanger who wants a change in his life.

The gameplay introduction video that Rockstar has already released show that you can control any of the three protagonists at any point of the game. When not in a mission, the characters you aren't controlling go about their daily lives and you can drop in and out at any point and take control.

The interesting part is when it comes to missions. In previous GTA games, you were little more than a lackey, doing the dirty work for other gangsters who didn't want to get their hands dirty. In 5, it would appear that your central characters are running the show (well, to a degree). When it comes to the heists, you plan out your method of pulling it off, whether you want to be smart and silent, or dumb and loud. It's your choice. When you are actually in the action, your plans dictate how well the heist goes off. An example would be, in one mission you have to kidnap some executive. Trevor is flying a helicopter that lowers Michael down to a board room window. Michael breaks through and grabs the guy but is quickly overwhelmed by guards, the player then flicks to Franklin who is across the street with a sniper rifle. Bam.

Other improvements look to be in the handling of vehicles. This was an issue in GTA4, it was nearly impossible to drive the cars at high speed. Weapon selection has been greatly improved, giving you a radial menu for weapons rather than scrolling through about 15 different guns until you find the one you actually need.

San Andreas itself looks utterly gorgeous, with beautiful countryside vistas juxtaposing true concrete jungle. It looks absolutely massive with so much to do I doubt a single player could effectively find and do everything.

The last part of the game to get an overhaul is the just-announced Grand Theft Auto Online. This looks to be more than a multiplayer like the one shoe-horned into GTA4. This is more like an MMO game set in San Andreas. It's entirely separate to the single player game, it's a place where you can be what you want when you want. Live by the law, buy a house, get a family, or get a gun and go on a killing spree. It's like The Sims on acid, in a fully open, persistent world. It remains to be seen how successful it is, but from Rockstar's trailer, it looks utterly immense and could be a defining legacy for the game.

All in all, GTA5 looks to be miles apart from its predecessor in both scope and ability. Playing with the core formula is what Grand Theft Auto has needed since the last generation of consoles. Hopefully Rockstar have made the ultimate open world game.

I for one, can't wait.

Read More

Six Reasons Why Dark Souls 2 Will Ruin Your Life

You Died

I'm about two thirds of the way through Dark Souls and so far I've seen that message nearly 200 times.

200 times. I've never dedicated so much time to a game I'm so universally terrible at. But I love it. I'm some kind of masochist clearly.

In March 2014, From Software will release the follow up to one of the most divisive games of this generation and quite frankly, I can't wait.

Despite a change in director, FromSoft have come out and stated that they won't be making it any easier, they won't be changing the core mechanics of the game too much and it's going to be just as hardcore. This was a massive comfort to those of us out there who revel in Dark Souls' difficulty and sheer challenge.

Here at The Gadget Addicts, we're beyond excited about this. Here's a list of reasons why Dark Souls 2 is driving us wild with anticipation:

1: The Difficulty

Too many games of this generation hold your hand, signpost you and give you a range of difficulty options. The difficulty of Dark Souls (and Demon Souls) was a massive dividing point for the gaming audience. Most gamers wrote it off as being horrendously unfair, destroying you frequently for the absolute sake of it.

This wasn't the case. The game was never unfair and it never cheated. Every single fight, every enemy was effectively a puzzle. Once you knew the methods and where the weak points on a boss were, the balance was restored. I remember the first time I realised that Gold Pine Resin and a drop attack would kill the Taurus demon in three hits, I felt like the most expert gamer in the world.

The whole point of the game was that you were never to feel persecuted by the game's design, you were always supposed to be the underdog, slaying huge beasts that should, by rights, be able to destroy you with just a swing of their arms/tentacles.  The same should apply for DS2, enemies that on the face of it are impossible to beat, but have a weakness that you need to find and exploit.

2: Lodran

The world of DS1 was amazing. From the Undead Asylum you escape from at the beginning of the game right the way through to the Kiln Of The First Flame at the very end, each area was meticulously designed and wonderfully executed. Most people can even forgive the frame-rate destroying complexity of Blighttown when it would lead to somewhere as wonderfully insane as the Demon Ruins.

One of the strengths in the design of Lodran is that while it feels massive, it's actually not. The world expands left, right, forward, back and down, but it's no where near as enormous as it first seems. On the surface, from Firelink Shrine to the end of Anor Londo can be sprinted in less than 10 minutes if you're crafty (especially with Sen's Fortress). The challenges make the world seem bigger than it is. Ok, everyone struggled finding the route down to the bottom of Blighttown, but even then, it's not far from the Depths, Lower Undead Burg and so on. 

The construction is also that you never actually feel lost. You can work your way around places very easily and if you do happen to take a wrong turn, well then no doubt you'll either run into a new enemy or find something new to do. You never have one of those maddening moments that other open world games give you where you are stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and a long walk back to something interesting.

From the preview gameplay videos of DS2 we can see that the world looks just as broken, yet just as beautiful. Hopefully they've stuck with the verticality and open world nature of the first game.

3: The Story

What story, you say? Well, if you cared to look for it, DS1 had a wonderfully intricate story that was told to you, less via cutscenes, more via character dialogue and the descriptions of items. You could know a wealth about a character well before you even encounter them, just by looking at the special items that you pick up along the way. This minimalistic method of storytelling allowed you to either hunt for every factoid and find as much of the story as possible, or treat the game as a rock hard dungeon crawler and ignore it entirely. Even down to the endings though, DS subverts your expectations of how stories are told.

There's no reason for DS2 not to follow the same path. In fact, if it were to be exposition heavy, like most modern games, it would spoil the mood and ruin the experience. All the hints released so far point to DS2 being a prequel, so maybe we'll see the birth of the First Flame?

4: The Combat

Oh, the fighting. So easy to learn yet almost impossible to even master. Even the best at the game still die (YouTube sage EpicNameBro has had some superbly funny deaths when he got careless), which is why the casual gamers turned off it. You have to carefully balance your weapon skill, equipment burden and your stamina level to be an effective fighter in DS. It can take most of the game to achieve, but when you finally hit on that perfect combination, you're unstoppable...

... Until you reach the next enemy who is immune to your flame sword, or who curses you on sight... Then tactics come down to it. Wheel around for a backstab, do a leaping stab then roll the fuck out of there, use a firebomb or dung pie, almost every combat style is viable in DS and you are frequently required to change things up a bit.

DS2 looks to further balance and infuriate. Enemies appear to be able to interrupt backstabs, some even crushing you when you get behind them (the so called Turtle Knights). You can now dualwield weapons, you can even carry 3 different weapons per hand this time round. No doubt FromSoft will have some devilish caveat to that though.

5: The Bosses

DS1 had some of the most ingenious boss fights I've ever seen in a game. Some of them were truly terrifying. Taking on a reanimated gargoyle with an axe for a tail? Killing it without incident? Well how about introducing a fire breathing one halfway through the fight? Bastards.

Or what about The Capra Demon? A goat-headed monstrosity with two huge swords and a pair of demon dogs that back you into a corner and destroy your health in seconds?

Or even the Four Kings, who spawn one by one until you're fighting four super strong enemies at once. 

DS2 has already shown us the fantastic Mirror Knight fight, where at points in the battle, another enemy breaks forth from his huge mirror shield and suddenly it's two against one. I seriously cannot wait to do this fight. Suggestions are even that the soldier who breaks through the shield to fight you may even be another human player in certain conditions, which would be equal parts nightmare and amazing.

6: The Multiplayer

DS' use of online functionality is genuinely superb. It's discreet. There's no matchmaking screens, no obnoxious teenagers screaming at you, no tea-bagging. 

The multiplayer works as such. The world is in a constant state of temporal flux (or so the story goes) which allows different worlds and time periods to interact. You can write a message with a special Soapstone item on the ground which another player can read informing them of traps or giving them tactics for upcoming fights.

You can even summon players from other worlds to help you with bosses or, if you're feeling really nasty, you can invade other players games and take them out to steal their precious Humanity.

It's a wonderful system, created for Demon's Souls and refined for Dark Souls. It should remain in place for DS2. Having no team chat is the big thing for me, you can get help but it still evokes that sense of isolation the game always pushes onto you. You can only communicate with your saviour via a predefined gesture list. Just the way it should be.

And of course, the best invaders are those who stop, bow to you as a sign of mutual respect, then get into a scrap, as opposed to those who just run in and surprise attack you.

The DS online community is one of the best around and even during invasions, you can find yourself up against a true gent.

So there you have it, 6 reasons why we cannot wait until Dark Souls 2 is ready. Six reasons why we're prepared to die all over again, and again, and again...

Read More