Ghostrunner 2

Don’t let the fast-paced motorcycle sections, larger levels or cyberspace fool you – Ghostrunner 2’s Jack is still very much the cyber-ninja bad-ass as in the previous game. Deflecting attacks, slicing through foes, parkouring through neon-lit environments, and one-hit kills are still part of the gameplay loop. The new abilities and rogue-like mode further add to the experience, even if there’s a lot of trial and error involved to progress forward.

And another thing – visually portraying a weapon’s character is only half the story. Animators must stimulate that most nebulous of concepts too: game feel. How does the player feel holding the weapon? Of course, there’re additional aspects at play: the weapon’s appearance, its fire rate and sound design, for instance. These aspects exist in harmony with weapon reload animations creating a tactile sensation for the player. If a firearm’s reload animation doesn’t match the rest of its design elements, then game feel is lost, and player satisfaction gone.

So, without further ado, here are fifteen totally awesome reload animations, ranging from rapid in-and-outs for breakneck gunplay, to stately, tactical, detailed reloads, with unnecessarily inefficient but visually epic flamboyance stuffed in-between.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Wearing its retro-future 80s action clichés firmly on its sleeve is Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Playing as Cyber Commando Sergeant Rex Colt, himself a tongue-in-cheek homage to Terminator-esque half-man half-machines, gave animators plenty of wiggle room for flashiness. There’re excessive exaggerations in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s reload animation; movements are wide and freewheeling, shotguns unnecessarily spin mid-air before cartridges are coin flipped down the barrel in carefree volition, providing both visual ostentation and information for players of Sergeant Colt’s robotic strength and precision. In short, they’re totally unrealistic, eye-popping attention-grabbers.

Flying Wild Hog, better known for its Shadow Warrior franchise, has been rather quiet lately. Publisher Devolver Digital did confirm that some announcement was coming from the studio, possibly for the upcoming Devolver Digital Direct. However, Flying Wild Hog itself has more or less confirmed that this could be the case.

“More or less” because it took to Twitter with the image “Teaser trailer filming in progress, quiet please!” If that doesn’t hint at an upcoming announcement, then we don’t know what could. The real question is whether this is a brand new Shadow Warrior game or something else entirely.

Shadow Warrior 2 launched in October 2016 for PC – it later came to Xbox One and PS4 in May 2017. The sequel saw the return of Lo Wang and introduced loot systems, randomized layouts for maps, a procedural damage system and more open areas. While sales numbers are unknown, Flying Wild Hog reported quadruple the sales of the original reboot. As for what’s coming next, stay tuned for Devolver Digital Direct on July 11th possible details.

pic.twitter.com/hIygD0MWmX

— Shadow Warrior 3 (@ShadowWarrior) July 2, 2020

No One Lives Forever

Zany 1960s spy aesthetic, hilariously clever writing, unique mission objectives and an endearing protagonist. What more could you want? No One Lives Forever was also releasing in a post-Half-Life era where stronger story-telling was valued in first person shooters. Alas, its success wasn’t to be. Despite rave reviews from critics, NOLF would release in November 2000 and only sell 36,501 copies by the end of the year. Even worse is the fact that current-generation players can’t experience it due to muddled IP rights. Nevertheless, whatever the future may hold, Cate Archer will forever be in our hearts.

Out of nowhere, ArtPlay’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Flying Wild’s Shadow Warrior 2 are now available for Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft had announced that these titles (along with several others) would hit the subscription service this month and they’re now available. Not bad, especially considering that Game Pass players also got The Coalition’s Gears 5 just last week.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is helmed by Koji Igarashi, formerly series producer on Castlevania. The title is a spiritual successor in this sense, offering side-scrolling action and exploration with numerous bosses and a bevy of weapon. Then there’s Shadow Warrior 2, a fun first person shooter with action RPG elements and its own share of wacky weapons.

Other titles slated to arrive for Xbox Game Pass this month include Jump Force, the crossover fighter with Shonen Jump legends; DiRT Rally 2.0, Codemasters’ rally racing sequel; LEGO Worlds; and Bad North, a minimalist strategy game. Stay tuned for more details on their release dates. Xbox Game Pass is available for $4.99 per month.

Our favorite ritual is dropping new games and surprise games, so here’s one of each. pic.twitter.com/WgU9LCrBHS

— PC Game Pass (@XboxGamePassPC) September 19, 2019

Microsoft has revealed the latest titles coming to Xbox Game Pass this month, focusing on the PC side of things. Though it launched with roughly 100 titles, September’s entries further diversify the line-up. It kicks off with The Coalition’s Gears 5, which should currently be available for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, and for everyone else on September 10th.

There’s Creature in the Well, a dungeon crawler meets pinball title that’s also out today. Bad North: Jotuun Edition is coming up and sees players engaging in strategic battles against Viking foes. Enter the Gungeon, which was available free on the Epic Games Store several weeks ago, is also coming, as is Motion Twin’s awesome side-scrolling rogue-lite Dead Cells.

If that weren’t enough, you get another roguelike with Gonner, which is a 2D side-scrolling shooter. Flying Wild Hog’s Shadow Warrior 2 rounds out this month’s releases, offering first person, hack and slash looting with over-the-top humour.

Left 4 Dead 2

While Left 4 Dead blazed a trail for co-op shooter titles – especially those with AI directors and hordes of enemies punctuated by special units – Left 4 Dead 2 offered that and more. More weapons, more variety in objective play and arguably tighter map design meshed well with the responsive shooting, expanded melee weapons and new Special Infected. Furthermore, with all the mods available – from character models like Lollipop Chainsaw’s Juliet to maps like the Battle of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – there’s near endless replay value here.

Flying Wild Hog has released a brand new update for Shadow Warrior 2, which prepares the game for its final free DLC, Bounty Hunt Part 2. Which is just as well, because the actual DLC itself is now available to download too, across PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

But that’s not all, either- if you haven’t yet played the game already, publisher Devolver Digital will be making it far easier for you to jump in by making the game 50% off on PS4, Xbox One, and PC through this week- making it cheaper for you to check the game out for yourself. Meanwhile, the original Shadow Warrior (well, ‘original’ here meaning this game’s prequel) is available to download for absolutely free on Steam right now.

Featuring a mix of crude humor and definitely some old school sensibilities, the new Shadow Warrior games have found themselves a mix of fans- maybe you can be one of them, if you try the games out for yourself. If you do end up enjoying them (or if you already enjoy them), let us know in the comments section below.

Flying Wild Hog has released a free DLC pack for Shadow Warrior 2 with Bounty Hunt Part 1. It brings 14 new missions, two new weapons (the Medusa Ray and EX-GF01 minigun) and four new perks (including Revenge and Shared Pain) for Lo Wang. Check out some gameplay from the new update below.

Some of the missions are in keeping with Shadow Warrior 2’s kitschy tone and over-the-top violent gameplay. There’s the Plague of the Bunny Lords, 50 Shades of Shade and Danger Zone on Mt. Akuma which you can take part in with up to four players. With the amount of weaponry, skills and loot, you won’t be wanting for customization in Shadow Warrior 2 especially with the latest DLC pack.

Bounty Hunt Part 1 is another free mission pack, following the Way of the Wang DLC that came before. You can currently pick up Shadow Warrior 2 for 25 percent off over the weekend if the gameplay interests you.

Flying Wild Hog’s Shadow Warrior 2 was pretty cool when it first released on PC and now the first person shooter is set to release on Xbox One and PS4 in April or May.

Speaking to WCCFTech, Flying Wild Hog’s Tadeusz Zielinski spoke about the PS4 Pro and what it could help the studio achieve.

With regards to whether it was powerful enough for 4K gaming, Zielinski noted, “PS4 Pro is a great upgrade over base PS4. the CPU didn’t get a big upgrade, but GPU is a beast. It also has some interesting hardware features, which help with achieving 4K resolution without resorting to brute force.”

As for architect Mark Cerny’s claims that the console’s ability to performance two 16-bit operations simultaneously as opposed to a single 32-bit operation, thus leading to “radically” increased performance, Zielinski noted, “Yes. Half precision (16 bit) instructions are a great feature. They were used some time ago in Geforce FX, but didn’t manage to gain popularity and were dropped.

“It’s a pity, because most operations don’t need full float (32 bit) precision and it’s a waste to use full float precision for them. With half precision instructions we could gain much better performance without sacrificing image quality.”

Shadow Warrior 2 will support PS4 Pro when it launches though no specific enhancements have been planned. Also, it most likely won’t support HDR on PS4 and Xbox One S “due to time constraints.”