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After another inspiring and exciting week of speedrunning, Summer Games Done Quick 2018 concluded today in Minneapolis after hauling in more than $2.1 million in donations to Doctors Without Borders.
As ever, SGDQ’s speedrunners served up too many amazing moments to count, but a couple standouts included a Dustforce DX race between fishmcmuffins and Freshmaniac, a speedrun of Warcraft III’s Undead campaign, and Linkus7 showing off some new tricks he’s discovered in The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker HD. The event concluded with an exciting speedrun of Final Fantasy VI.
This year, more than 35,000 people donated a total of $2,123,885, for an average donation of $60.09, surpassing last year’s haul of $1,792,342. This is the first year SGDQ has hit the $2 million mark, and it's the most money the summer event has raised since it began in 2011.
Games Done Quick is about the best speedrunners, so here's our list of the .
This year’s SGDQ proceeds are again going to Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization that began in France and works to help people in areas stricken by violent conflict or disease epidemics. Games Done Quick has also raised money for humanitarian organization CARE, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, AbleGamers Foundation, the Organization for Autism Research, and the Houston Food Bank in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The next GDQ event will be Awesome Games Done Quick, which is scheduled for January 6-13 in Rockville, Maryland.
If you watched Bethesda's E3 conference, you saw all of Fallout 76 that the publisher was willing to show last week. If you missed the conference and only care about Fallout and don't want to watch an Andrew W.K. mini-concert or talk about The Elder Scrolls Online before getting to what you want, Bethesda has made the Fallout 76 gameplay portion of the conference available online.
You can hear Todd Howard talk about the new online Fallout here.
Fallout 76 releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
After nearly a decade of struggling to field a competitive basketball game, last year EA Sports that signal a better future for the NBA Live franchise. NBA Live 19 looks to continue the upward trajectory with some needed changes to the on-court action and some interesting additions to The One mode. Here's everything we learned from playing a couple games and chatting with creative director Connor Dougan.
GAMEPLAY
NBA Live 19 introduces the Real Player Motion technology recently seen in EA Sports titles like FIFA 18 and UFC 3, which EA Tiburon believes has resulted in more realistic player animations. "When you compared us to 2K in the past it just wouldn't feel as smooth; we had this kind of stiffness," Dougan says. "With Real Player Motion and changing our player skeleton and models, we feel we have a nice jump in animation quality."
Some of the new animations I saw in gameplay included new contested dunks, players fighting through screens during pick and rolls, and way more physicality off the ball.
The new animation system comes hand-in-hand with reworked dribbling. Expect to see many more signature animations like LeBron James puffing out his chest and James Harden coming up the court with more relaxed body language and his standard crossovers. You can also pull off basic moves by flicking the left analog stick; you no longer always need to use the right analog stick, but if you do expect to find more moves for star players than before.
EA also did a lot of "live environment" work to make the players better interact with the world around them. Expect to see players crashing into the stanchion, diving into the crowd, taunting one another, and even exchanging pleasantries with the opposing team's bench along the sidelines.
Overhauled triple-threat controls integrate new jab steps and a new pump fake system.
Building off last year's one-on-one gameplay, EA is bringing the cat and mouse game to off-ball interactions as well, which should hopefully make playing in space more engaging. You use the left trigger to engage in off-ball defense, which tries to slow down your mark. The offensive player has counters like V-cuts and L-cuts to break off your defending.
The reworked shooting system now includes varied jump heights and release points for different players, which should make it feel more authentic.
Last year's CPU A.I. had problems feeding star players. EA says this year's dynamic gameplay A.I. does a better job of recognizing when a star is heading up and will continue to feed a hot hand. Stars will strong personalities will start to talk trash when firing on all cylinders.
You can now switch to take control of an off-ball player in versus by holding the RB and flicking the analog stick toward the player you want to control.
You can triple-tap the steal button to perform a hard foul when you need to stop the clock.
The transition game also gets a jump in CPU A.I. Expect to see players on the break cut to the hoop stronger and the trailing wing players space out for open threes.
If you own a player by continually scoring on them or breaking their ankle, you can affect their mentality. When a player is adversely affected, their ratings take a hit.
To mix up replays, NBA Live 19 introduces cell phone cutaway highlights, where the perspective shifts to a person in the crowd capturing the play of note.
THE ONE
Last year, you played as a former blue-chip college prospect trying to overcome a horrific injury. This year you start earlier in the journey as a hot high school prospect. Rather than go to college, you try to build your rep on the street courts.
Eventually if you earn enough prestige, you get invited to a pre-draft camp where you can prove your mettle by playing in a few prospect games.
During your rise to stardom, influencers and broadcasters will show off your highlights.
The dialogue system returns from last year, but it leans more heavily toward meaningful choices this time.
Expect to see more hairstyles, tattoos, and clothing options this year.
Cosmetics are no longer locked behind loot crates. You can buy what you want when you want.
The progression system is similar to last year, but adds a new wrinkle with the icon abilities. These abilities give you branching choices that let you to have more say over what type of specialist you are. Say you choose shot blocking as your icon ability. Eventually, you may be presented with a choice. For instance, do you want a higher percentage of success for each shot block, or extend the radius where your shot block is effective?
EA has added several new traits to the progression as well.
EA realizes there were too many ball hogs in online team play last year, so it reworked the grading system to give players more points for teamplay and less for being selfish. If you take a bad shot, you will get hit with a -10. Doing it again knocks you another 20 points, and it continues to scale the punishment so people have way less incentive to try to shoot out of slumps.
SQUAD
Last year in The One's Street mode you went to different venues to play with random collections of players. This year you can custom build your squad by earning players as you rack up Ws. As you beat different teams, you can add star players to your lineup that can be swapped out as you see fit.
The players you start with are largely scrubs and low-level NBA benchwarmers, but you can eventually earn stars and even NBA legends.
Your streetball endeavors take you to new courts around the world, including France, Brazil, and the Phillippines. Expect a few new North American courts as well.
Many of the live events in NBA Live 19 will be centered on earning new squad players who are only available for a limited time.
We still have a lot to learn about how EA Tiburon plans to improve the Ultimate Team and Franchise Mode experieince of NBA Live 19. Stay tuned in the coming months as we dive deeper into the title.
The free NBA Live 19 demo releases on August 24 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The First Trial starts on September 3 on Xbox One, and final release drops for both consoles on September 7.
Developer Sumo Digital landed a hit with its 2012 kart-racing game Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Now, the developer is partnering with Sonic Team, stripping away the non-Sonic characters, and adding a new layer of team-based strategy for Team Sonic Racing.
In this new kart-racing title from Sega, the developers are focusing entirely on the Sonic universe, which means no Aiai or Ryo Hazuki this time around (sorry, fellow Shenmue fans). Instead, players get a roster of 15 Sonic characters. In the build I played, I could choose between Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Shadow, Rouge, and E-123 Omega. Each character fits into one of three classes: speed, technique, or power. Once you choose a character, you're placed in a team of three based on the character's alliances; Sonic was always placed with Tails and Knuckles, while Rouge raced alongside Shadow and Omega.
When the race begins, it plays out much like a standard kart racer. Characters drift around corners, acquire consumable items, and avoid zany obstacles in the push to be first. In addition to the tried-and-true formula, players can help their teammates; you can gift items, request items, and slingshot around teammates by following their path. The game will also include a solo mode that removes the team-based mechanics, but outside of an occasional pure kart-racing foray, I don't foresee myself playing that mode much.
At the end of the race, it assigns points for your team based on where each member finished. This means you must help your team in order to actually win. In one of my races, my team finished third, fourth, and fifth, but because we were the most consistent team, we came in first in the race. In another race, I finished first, but my teammates were in the middle of the pack, so we came in second overall. I like that twist of having to keep an eye on your standing in the race, as well as your teammates.
When the game ships, it will feature stages that are both brand new to the Sonic universe, as well as familiar levels. While the developers wouldn't spill any additional details, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka tells me that some stages will feature recognizable songs from Sonic's past, and that Jun Senoue is composing the game. In addition, Senoue's fan-favorite band, Crush 40, performs the main theme.
Team Sonic Racing may not have the fancy transformations or characters outside of the Sonic universe, but it makes up for it with thoughtful team-based mechanics that add new twists to the formula. Sonic Team Racing is set to launch this winter on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
Update: We posed a few questions about the game to developer Playground Games – check out their answers in the sidebar below the main story.
The Forza Horizon franchise has always been about an open world, but Forza Horizon 4 is stretching that in new ways for the series. We talked with the developers at Playground Games in more depth about the what players can expect as they explore, engage in co-op with friends, and enjoy the seamless environment.
Driving around the world, you will always have access to 12 real-life drivers. Moreover, this online state can easily be switched off at any time, at which time the game reverts back to the drivatar-filled world you’re used to. As you race along, your friends can follow you across the map, but the game will load in instances of other real-life drivers.
Players experience four distinct seasons, which introduce their own handling challenges and even open up new areas of the map, and the seasons change for everyone at the same time once per week.
If you see someone, their collision will be turned off unless they’re already a friend or you start a race (you can also block people if you just don't want them in your world). Forza Horizon 4’s co-op blends the previously separate co-op silos so there’s no difference between free-roam and event racing, for instance. While you won't be able to create your own events in the world (like putting down a marker where you hit some huge air, for example), you're free to flow between all the game has to offer with or without other people.
Despite the fact that the online scope of the game is widening, features like race rewinding and photography are still available, as is the ability to chat in the world via preset messages.
The Horizon Festival is once again at the center of the title (complete with a drag strip and circuit in the hub), but campaign players are free to rise up the ranks as they see fit, whether that's through racing, painting, photography, tuning, or streaming.
The game also broadens out the Forza Horizon lifestyle with ancillary options like houses, jobs, owning businesses, and customization through clothing. There are approximately 12 houses to own in the game, from a simple cottage to Edinburgh Castle, although developer Playground Games hasn't specified how you purchase them (the studio hasn't announced any new microtransactions). Houses can also be used for fast travel.
Those looking for a PvP competitive scene can find it in new team PvP, leagues, and the ability to recruit and create/share PvP circuits.
Post-launch the team is looking at the in-game season format (one year in the game should roughly equal one month) to push new content, and the ultimate goal is to make each season in the game have different stuff to do from in-game year to in-game year. One of the things on the wishlist currently is the ability to make your own events for co-op play.
From game to game the Forza Horizon series has fulfilled the promise of its open world more and more, and Forza Horizon 4 is taking down one of the last main barriers.
