Microsoft’s Game Pass service is continuing on, bringing with it more and more games for those who subscribe. Of course, October is going to be no exception, as a new batch of titles is primed and ready to go. The game undoubtedly leading the charge is the brand new RPG, The Outer Worlds. 

The list this month is populated by quite the variety of titles, from the open world title Saints Row IV: Re-elected to the fast-paced racing sim F1 2018. It’s got plenty of smaller scale titles too, with the likes of State of Mind, Minit, Stellaris, and Lonely Mountains: Downhill. But it’s hard not to see the shining star as The Outer Worlds, which will release day and date on Game Pass with the game’s full-priced physical/digital release. 

As of now there’s no confirmed dates for when the games will roll out, outside The Outer Worlds being said to be day and date with the full release on October 25th. Keep your eyes peeled for those dates.

To hype up the release of Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell and Saints Row IV: Re-elected next week, Volition is offering the original Saints Row IV for free to PC users this weekend. Simply head over to Steam, download the game client and you’ll be on your way to enjoying one of the best open world action adventure games ever made. Free play for the game ends this Sunday evening.

If you like Saints Row IV and want to continue playing, there’s a 75 percent discount on-going which means you can buy it for just $5. You can also pick up the Game of the Century Edition which includes pretty much all of the DLC for just $7.50.

Saints Row IV follows up on the third game by putting the Third Street Saints into the White House…shortly before it’s attacked by aliens and the boss is hurled into a virtual prison. From there, it’s a struggle to kill the aliens and free the trapped citizens of Earth.

This is the generation of delays. Almost every major big name game has been delayed at some point or the other, sometimes by a few days, sometimes indefinitely, so that they extend into the following year. Given that almost no game released this year has met its release date, will it come as a surprise to you to learn that the Saint’s Row 4 expansion, Gat Out Of Hell, has also moved its release date, and will not be hitting its original targeted date?

No? Well how about this- yes, the release date for Gat Out Of Hell has been moved, but it has been moved forward. That’s right, instead of delaying the game, Deep Silver and Volition will be releasing the game one week ahead of time, on January 20 in the US, and January 23 in Europe.

So that’s something, isn’t it? It’s always nice when we get games before we thought we would, especially given how rare that situation is.

Have you ever wanted to create your own wacky Saints Row missions and show Volition how it was done? Good news – the developer has plans to release the full SDK for Saints Row IV with the first editor allowing you to create your own weapons. Head here for Release A.

The first release will come with all the tools and templates, along with tutorials, for creating weapons. To make the choice all the more diverse, weapons from Saints Row The Third have also been included. Unfortunately, these created weapons and editing tools will only be available to PC gamers. There will also be a skin for a weapon from the upcoming Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, namely the Damned Impaler.

It remains to be seen what other tools Volition will release but it certainly makes the wait for new official Saints Row content easier. Have you started creating your own weapons yet? Let us know below.

While these games may have wowed the world, some of us have taken a collective “wait and watch” approach. Ubisoft – and several developers in general – have taken to releasing unfinished products and patching those months after their launch. There are things to be excited about, sure, but it’s not worth getting too hyped up for.

"There's perhaps no other game on the list that deserves this much scrutiny as Assassin's Creed: Unity."

There’s perhaps no other game on the list that deserves this much scrutiny as Assassin’s Creed: Unity. It will be the first game in the franchise to be developed for the PS4 and Xbox One exclusively (with a PC release also due). After several titles featured competitive play, this will be the first game in the series to introduce co-op and that too with four players. This will also mark several changes to the core parkour system, allowing players easier wall-running and navigation when moving up and down buildings. On the outset, Assassin’s Creed: Unity marks a truly new beginning for the franchise.

Our scepticism begins with the game’s world though. Ubisoft has apparently taken up a new approach for its open world mission structure which is being touted as more “fluid” and “dynamic”. As in Watch Dogs, you’ll be able to roam the city in Assassin’s Creed: Unity and pick up different missions based on random pedestrian behaviour.

This could mean intervening in a fight, chasing a thief, delivering news to a grieving mother or – it seems on a larger scale – fighting for the various factions in the city. In Watch Dogs, these little missions – which we hesitate to even call side missions – would pop up and either immediately demand your attention or lay by the wayside till you mustered up enough interest.

"his would apparently mean your decisions have lasting impacts and that you just can't do everything that your ADD-addled gaming self wishes to do..."

It’s fairly different from what we’ve seen in games like Batman: Arkham City (though Arkham Origins had many of these elements with the random GCPD calls for crimes and fights). Arkham City filled a city with different collectibles, side-stories, villains and whatnot but always had the story looming over you, demanding your attention at every turn. Don’t you want to know what Protocol Ten is? Don’t you want to stop Hugo Strange? Collecting the Riddler’s trophies of course posed their own importance, as did taking down Deadshot or confronting Victor Zsasz before he could kill an innocent person. This all fit into Batman’s super-hero ideals but never, ever detracted from the main story.

Watch Dogs was seemingly different. It always wanted to occupy you with tasks whether it’s rescuing people or chasing down cars or assaulting gang hideouts. Meanwhile, protagonist Aiden Pearce is presented as a shallow, oftentimes impulsive bore who is only concerned about the next lead in his vengeance quest rather than looking at the big picture or even trying to save the city (though this changes as the game progresses). It’s an odd disconnect when you go from trying to avenge your niece’s death to suddenly stealing money from ATMs and assaulting gang members because some text messages told you to.

This seems to be the direction that Assassin’s Creed: Unity is going, even with Arnaud stating, “I can’t help everyone”. This would apparently mean your decisions have lasting impacts and that you just can’t do everything that your ADD-addled gaming self wishes to do for the sake of sweet Reputation points and upgrades.

"There's the hope that lessons were learned from Watch Dogs or that the development team is at least pursuing its own creative direction rather than being influenced by other open world titles."

Then again, it could just mean the opposite. It’s hard to tell with Ubisoft these days and this small, narrative-less structure of “activities” is annoying. Even Saints Row managed to finally tie its various activities together into the game’s single-player campaign, no matter how loosely, with the fourth iteration. Could it possibly be this difficult for Ubisoft to do the same?

Watch Dogs at least proved it could but there’s still hope for Assassin’s Creed: Unity. There’s the hope that lessons were learned from Watch Dogs or that the development team is at least pursuing its own creative direction rather than being influenced by other open world titles. The latter approach would make much more sense because if you want Assassin’s Creed-style gameplay, you’ll be playing Assassin’s Creed and not Grand Theft Auto. Similarly, if players want a world full of various little distractions and hackable interactions, they can pursue Watch Dogs rather than wanting the same features in Assassin’s Creed.

For now, Assassin’s Creed: Unity has a ways to go before its release and Ubisoft is focusing on all the right talking points with the theme of revolution and fighting against oppression. Hopefully, it won’t drop the ball and focus on all the background noise that it’s larger in-game crowds are generating.

After impressing us with not one but two excellent open world titles in Saints Row The Third and Saints Row IV, Volition is seeking to expand further. According to The News-Gazette, the developer is looking at $200,000 in incentives from the city of Champaign to expand its downtown offices for adding 100 more team members.

If it doesn’t expand in downtown Champaign, it may look at other locations which would be less cost-intensive. The Champaign City Council will apparently be looking at this request later today.

Currently, Volition contains +200 employees and occupies 47,000 square feet One Main Plaza’s second and third floor. The developer was previously owned by THQ, under which it published the third Saints Row title before the publisher went bankrupt. The studio was later picked up by Koch Media under its Deep Silver games division. Deep Silver also owns franchises like Metro, Dead Island and much more.

What are your thoughts on Volition expanding further? Let us know below.

Milestone Interactive’s Game4u.com is currently holding its March Madness sale, which began on March 28th and will wrap up on April 7th.

Partnering with Zotac, Game4U is offering a 20 to 30 percent discount on digital titles which include Battlefield 4, Saints Row IV, Crysis Warhead, DmC: Devil May Cry, FIFA 14, etc. Those who manage to earn the top spender spot will be able to win a Zotac Zbox ID90 worth Rs. 50,000 along with 2 Zotac jerseys.

As for the games in question, Saints Row IV and DmC: Devil May Cry are good deals having been critically acclaimed. Saints Row IV in particular is one of the best open world games of last year and just a blast to play in general. Crysis Warhead is far beyond showing its age though and you should opt for FIFA 14 only if you really like the franchise and need your football fix.

Let us know what you think of the above deals in the comments below.

If it seemed like OnLive was dead, then the recent launch of CloudLift should eliminate evidence to the same. The new cloud gaming service is offering consumers the ability to play any PC game they’ve downloaded from digital stores like Steam on pretty much any device.

This means you can play the supported games – which include Saints Row IV, Batman: Arkham Origins and Type:Rider – on your tablet, Mac, ultrabook, Google TV, you name it without any problems. You’ll need to subscribe at $15/£9.99 per month and then sync said PC games to your OnLive account but from there, it’s smooth sailing. You can even play on one device and continue where you left off on another, thanks to Cloud saves.

OnLive will also begin selling download codes for different games, which also grant a 7 day trial for CloudLift. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes but if the game catalog expands, it could be a pretty significant step forward. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

It starts with the Saints characters talking about why the DLC was cancelled and doesn’t take long before going into the specifics of bondage. While Enter the Dominatrix will have a few similarities to the fourth game, it’s best to think of it as an over-exaggerated – even by Saints Row standards – take on what could have been,

The DLC pack for the game has been released today on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC; you can also check out official review for Saints Row IV here.

Indomitable – 10G
Complete ‘Meet the Dominatrix’ without dying.

Rigging the Race – 10G
Destroy all the rival pony carts in ‘At the Races’.

Health Inspector – 10G
Destroy all the green polyps inside Paul in ‘Pop His Top’.

Bow to the Boss! – 15G
Kill the Dominatrix in ‘Escape the Dominatrix’.

Friend of the Raptors – 20G
Complete all five missions.

Hello Little Friend – 5G
Get 250 kills with the Minigun.

OMGWTFBBQ – 5G
Get 100 kills with the Flamethrower.

Ultimate Hot Potato – 5G
Get 100 kills with the Grenade Launcher.

Secret Achievements

Walking the Dinosaur – 10G
Spent 30 minutes with Chicken Ned’s prehistoric ancestor.

Saints Row IV: Enter the Dominatrix will be releasing on October 22nd in North America and October 23rd in Europe for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

(Source)