Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam and is 10% off!*

Thrones of Britannia is a standalone Total War game which will challenge you to re-write a critical moment in history, one that will come to define the future of modern Britain. With ten playable factions, you must build and defend a kingdom to the glory of Anglo-Saxons, Gaelic clans, Welsh tribes or Viking settlers. Forge alliances, manage burgeoning settlements, raise armies and embark on campaigns of conquest across the most detailed Total War map to date.

*Offer ends at 10AM Pacific Time

This weeks snapshot brings some performance boosts for data pack loading & command execution. We’re moving offices next week, so there may a bit of silence surrounding snapshots as we settle down and figure out where the new best pizza place is. Priorities, you understand.

A full changelog can be found on Minecraft.net:

• Updated the horse model again (check out a photo below)
• Applied new translations from crowdin
• Improved performance of command parsing & data pack loading
• Improved performance of command execution
• Allow /data get ... something to work on non-numeric values
• Added commands to the profiler (/debug)
• Added /particle <name> <pos> shortcut for when you really don’t need much else
• Fixed bug MC-122196 – Language options are blank
• Fixed bug MC-123285 – Crash on startup with a debug log4j config
• Fixed bug [                 ] x 16

To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 1.13 will have a lot of experimental snapshots that may break everything and smell funny. This may be one of those snapshots. This is what happens when Mojang are changing all the things! 

Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!

Quest Online’s MMO Alganon has been offline since November of 2017. As noted by some eagle-eyed Reddit users, the game is currently inaccessible from the Steam store page.

Alganon originally launched in December 2009 after being criticized for borrowing heavily from World of Warcraft for its UI and mechanics. 

Because of lackluster reception from critics, Quest Online decided to remove David Allen (creator of the initial idea for Alganon) and replace him with game designer Derek Smart. This prompted Allen to file a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Quest Online, which was eventually settled.

Problems continued even after the re-launch of Alganon, which raised controversy after it was revealed that its press release bore similar copy to BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Smart told users in a Steam post back in October 2017 that low server population was the cause for infrequent updates, writing that “we were planning a visual update, and another DLC, but those plans are on hold for now.”

In November the game went offline for what was characterized as server maintenance and migration, with the last update written on January 16th. 

Creating a character isn’t always a clear cut path from point A to point B. As an artist it may be difficult to adapt to change, especially when working in a new direction or with a different engine.

In this GDC 2014 session, former lead character artist at Irrational Gavin Goulden discusses the development of Elizabeth and other characters from BioShock Infinite and BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea through the context of an asset pipeline.

Goulden offers examples of the multiple directions the art team went through during development and explains what worked and what didn’t.

He explains how the team settled on their final direction for Elizabeth, the evolution of the characters encountered during combat, how the general population got an extreme overhaul, and why all of the changes were significant in helping to create a stronger end product. 

Artists interested in seeing how Elizabeth came to be designed can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.

Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all of the new games coming soon to Xbox One. Every week, the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console — and Xbox Wire will be here to let you know when these games will be hitting Xbox One. From establishing a historic railroad network in Railway Empire to stepping into the octagon in EA Sports UFC 3, there’s a great variety of titles on the way. Read more about these games and more below.

Games

January 30, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – The race is on to create the most dominant rail empire in North America and it’s up to you to lead your company to success in this New World. Establish complex rail networks, optimize transportation of passengers and goods, and play with more than 40 historically accurate trains each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Games

January 30, 2018

In this psychological thriller, you’ll be trapped in an experimental machine that’s designed to simulate your character’s memories. To escape, you must revisit a past that you may not want to remember. Inspired by such sci-fi television series like “The Twilight Zone,” “The X-Files,” and “Black Mirror,” Asemblance is designed as the first episode of a new, expansive franchise.

Games

January 31, 2018

Inspired by such side-scrolling beat ’em ups like Golden Axe and Knights of the Round, embark on a historic journey to defend Britannia and fight back against the Romans in Wulverblade. Play solo or in local two-player co-op with a historically accurate story across a variety of levels.

Games

February 02, 2018

Davy Jones and his undead crew appear once again to kidnap the museum custodian Sarah Black and force her daughter Cory to sign a dark pact. To save Cory, Sarah will travel through mysterious locations, solve plenty of puzzles, and learn the truth about the ghost of a beautiful young girl who roams Davy Jones’ island.

Games

February 02, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – Step into the octagon and get ready to punch, kick, and block your way to the top in EA Sports UFC 3. Powered by a new animation tech (Real Player Motion), an improved G.O.A.T. Career Mode to build your own fighter, and a variety of customizable multiplayer modes aim to make this the best UFC fighting game ever. EA Access members can start playing today.

Every Nintendo system has its gems, but to say we were a bit spoilt with the Game Boy Advance is an understatement. Game after game after game kept being released, and there were so many incredible ones our original list was well over double the size of this one. For the sake of brevity and my own sanity, we cut it down.

So what are these 26 mythical games? Well, we’ve divided them into the list below in no particular order, and a top five just below that to keep things interesting. To further the ‘interesting’ theme, we are also only allowing one game per mainline franchise, otherwise we’d be drowning in Super Mario Advance games.

Here’s our list of 21 in no particular order:

That’s the bulk of it of course, but that’s not why you’re here is it? Come on then, let’s indulge ourselves with the top 5.

5. Golden Sun

Golden Sun seems to have slipped a fair number of people by, and it’s a massive shame because this first entry in the series is arguably one of the finest RPGs ever released on the system. Despite its somewhat childish art style the story is surprisingly mature and warrants a lot more thought than you might expect.

4. Advance Wars

We couldn’t forget the grandaddy of tactics games now could we? Advance Wars may seem simple on the surface, but the sheer number of mechanics and available strategies at play are simply staggering. If you haven’t played this one yet you absolutely have to.

3. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Ludicrous title systems aside, this is undoubtedly the best version of Super Mario Bros. 3 to date. It features the SNES-like graphics of Super Mario All Stars but with the added bonus of a whole host of new levels thanks to the e-Reader.

2. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

We know we’re bending the rules by including this as well as A Link to the Past, but it’s our list and we’ll do what we like. Much like the Oracle games this title was developed by Capcom, not Nintendo. It’s a bold and genuinely different kind of top-down Zelda game, and every frame is absolutely gorgeous. The Wind Waker-style graphics really give a sense of charm and character that has often been lost in older 2D Zelda games.

1. Metroid Fusion & Metroid: Zero Mission

Ok, we’ve bent the rules again. What are you going to do about it? We simply couldn’t choose between these two games, they’re both masterpieces. Slap a fresh coat of high-def paint on them and you could honestly sell them as modern titles without anyone batting an eyelid. From top to bottom both games just ooze class, ingenuity, and an undeniable creepiness about the aesthetic. If you’ve never played either, we don’t care how you go about it, just play at least one of them immediately.

And there you have it lovely people, the 26 finest GBA game to ever grace the system in any of its forms. Naturally you may have your own ideas of what constitutes such a list, so be sure to voice just that in the comments below.