TT Games has been steadily releasing Lego titles for more than a decade now, bringing notable franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Marvel and DC comics to life in charming, family friendly games. While the frequency of releases has been reliable, its quality has occasionally slipped. If you were frustrated with the state of Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 at launch, , either. TT Games has been examining how to revitalize its games moving forward, starting with the upcoming Lego DC Super-Villains. I played the E3 demo and chatted with Arthur Parsons, head of design at TT Games, about what the studio is doing to make the best possible game – for both returning players and newcomers. 
There’s a lot to unpack with this game, so I’ll focus on the big things first. Lego DC Super-Villains is the first time that players will get to play through a campaign centered around the best part of most stories: the bad guys. “Everyone loves playing as Vader or Voldemort, or whoever the bad guys are,” Parsons says.” And because of the wealth of source material here, TT Games had a lot to work with. “DC’s villains, I think they out of every IP we’ve ever touched, they’ve got the best roster of villains. By a long way.”
Players have been able to play as the baddies in free play in the DC games, with one exception. “In Lego Batman 1 we had villain levels, but you had to complete the whole hero bit first,” Parsons says. “They were actually the most fun bit of Lego Batman 1, but we’ve not been there since. When it came time to do another DC game, villains was the obvious choice. It effectively feels like a new IP.”
While you’ll interact with bad guys like Lex Luther, Joker, and Harley Quinn, there’s also another major player in town: you. “For the first time ever, the customizer is important to the game,” Parsons says. “Normally it’s an afterthought; it’s just something for free play. This time around, the first thing you do is create your own villain who joins with the Legion of Doom. But the villain that you create is actually important in the story, and you can upgrade them along the way, so they have the ability to absorb energy, so you get new powers and new abilities, and it’s a character who weaves in and out of the story all the way right through the end.”
If you don’t care all that much about your character, you can pick from a variety of presets or have the game come up with a random selection. Lego veterans know the depth that players have with their created characters, and it’s fully on display here. You have a wide array of options at your disposal, from decals, body parts, and weapons, right down to your villain’s backstory. Your character has an absorption ability, so he or she can acquire new powers throughout the campaign. When it’s over, it’s possible to end up with an overpowered jack-of-all-trades style villain, who can deftly handle gold and silver blocks, laser-cutting puzzles, and anything else that gets in the way – similar to how the unlockable Stan Lee character acts in the Lego Marvel titles.
The demo is a silly escape from Stryker’s Island, where Lex Luther and Mercy help my created character out of the prison. As we move from one brick-bashing location to the next, I also get to play as Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, Joker, and Harley. There isn’t anything particularly mind-blowing about any of it, but it does highlight some of the refinements that TT Games has made – refinements that are a long time coming. For example, when you encounter a situation that requires a specific character’s ability, control will automatically leap to that villain.
“We’ve put a lot of attention on accessibility with this game,” Parsons explains. “We don’t want kids to get roadblocked, we don’t want anyone getting frustrated not knowing what to do.” In one area, I climb to the top of an area with wall jumps. Once I get to the top, Cheetah jumps away from the opening to prevent her from accidentally falling back down. “I know that’s not much of a touch, but all those little things, people just get through the content nice and easy and they don’t get roadblocked,” Parsons says. 
Parsons says that his team went back to the studio’s earlier games as an exercise, and played through them again. It ended up providing them with some great internal feedback, including the realization that it’s quite easy to get stuck on the first levels of their games. “We can’t allow that to happen. I know when I play games, and you get to a point where you get frustrated or there are roadblocks, you put the controller down, and sometimes you won’t come back. That’s just unacceptable. We create all this content, and we spend a lot of time creating it, and we want everyone to be able to get through it.”
Technical issues have been a problem for the Lego games, too, and those have been given special attention. Sometimes, the solution comes from avoiding problem areas altogether. I build a drivable gadget with Joker, and after I place the final brick, the character automatically moves a little bit away from the creation. “You know far too well that some games in the past once you build something, sometimes you get embedded in it or wedged into things,” Parsons says, “Little things like that help stop these little niggly bugs and irritants that are going to come through.”
One such irritant is the platforming. It’s never felt great in the games, and characters have a tendency to fall during lengthy jumping sections. Parsons says it’s being addressed with DC Super-Villains. “People won’t notice, but there will be slight magnetism, so if you’re doing a jump and you kind of drift, we’ll sort of auto drift you back, but you won’t notice it. In terms of refinements from say, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 to this one, there will be several thousand, but people won’t necessarily notice them because they’re all little tiny bits here, there, and everywhere. It’s that constant evolution. We do try to get better and better at what we do.” 
Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 ended up being a bit of a wake-up call for TT Games. As I mentioned in , it was loaded with technical issues that made it difficult to play. “Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 in my mind is a great game, but there were a few bugs and glitches when it came out,” Parsons says. “They’re all fixed in a patch now, but the problem is they shouldn’t be there in the first place.” He says his team is working to do everything they can to make sure this game ships bug-free. “ The way we’ve had to do that is actually lengthen our debug phase. It’s more than double for this than if we were doing a normal dev cycle. The results of this should be that when people get it in their hands it’s slick and it’s clean.”
We won’t know until the game’s October 16 release date if they’re successful, but what I played was rock solid. I appreciate the little quality-of-life touches , such as automatically switching characters during some sections in single player. After years of playing the games, I’ve gotten used to some of the peculiarities. But as Parsons says, his audience is constantly changing. “As kids graduate up and start playing Fortnite, there’s a whole new package of kids that come and are going to play it. Despite all the Lego games we’ve made, this could be someone’s very first Lego game.”
Hopefully, the little touches and improvements will make life much easier and more fun for those new players. Me, I’m just eager to hang with Joker and his friends.

Hunt: Showdown was one of the most promising titles of last year's E3, and in the year since our first look at the reworked competitive survival horror shooter from Crytek, the studio has slowly been refining the technology driving the game in Steam Early Access. The logistical work has paid off, and the game has mostly very positive user reviews since the last big patch (bringing the total user review rating up to the mostly positive category).
Now that the developer feels more comfortable with the game's performance, the team is starting to further expand the content for the game. We sat down with Crytek at E3 to hear about its plans. New Weaponry
Hunters can look forward to wielding several new weapons in the near future. In the early moments of each round, most hunters equip their melee weapons to move silently and avoid detection. Crytek plans to expand the melee options to include a throwable tomahawk ax and throwing knives, both of which are retrievable. 
Two new types of grenades are also being introduced. The Hive Bomb unleashes a torrent of wasps on enemies in the vicinity, and the Sticky Bomb sticks to its target before detonating. 
Crytek also plans to add two new crossbows. The vintage version is a classic two-handed weapon, and can be modified with explosive arrows that pack a serious punch. The hand crossbow is a faster loading one-handed model.  New Enemy
The water is typically one of the safest places in the Hunt map, which seems counterintuitive given this is the land of gators. Rather than add scaly reptiles to the mix, Crytek is introducing the Water Devil. This worm-like monster will have you watching for unexpected ripples in the water. Once it starts heading your way, you better get moving or expect to be overwhelmed by the swarm of tentacles. New Time Of Day
The night and day versions of maps give the map a very different feel, but soon you may be subjected to a third option – fog. A popular fan request, adding fog to the map diminishes the sightlines significantly, forcing you to move more cautiously unless you want to accidentally run into a pack of enemies or, even worse, and a more careful party of hunters than your own. New Map
Crytek wouldn't tell us much about the new map, except to say that it's still set in the Louisiana bayou. 
Other changes coming in the next several months include death screens that show you who shot you, spectator mode for after you die but want to watch the rest of the map, and player looting that allows you to take ammo and consumables.
To learn more about Crytek's list of planned changes for Hunt: Showdown, you can check out on its website.

Gamers have had a glut of interesting cooperative shooters to play in the last few years, with standouts like Destiny, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and The Division keeping squads together through various universes. But one curious absence in the current cooperative landscape is a survival-horror experience that riffs on the tension and teamplay sensibilities of the cult favorite Left 4 Dead franchise. A small team of former Payday developers at 10 Chambers Collective hopes to tap into that neglected theme with GTFO. 
This universe isn't another me-too zombie game sending waves of brain-eaters at your squad. Instead, players assume the role of prisoners sent into the depths of a mysterious underground complex against their will to retrieve curious items of interest for their warden. Finding the objects is easy enough; making it out alive is the tricky part, as the halls are roamed by deadly monstrosities that look like grotesque evolutions of The Last of Us' clickers.
Before dropping into the darkened halls for a hands-on session I had a chance to check out the arsenal available to players. Each prisoner can carry two guns, a melee weapon, and a special tool like a motion sensor, area scanner that can tag enemies behind walls, sentry turret,  and a glue gun that can be used to slow the advancing horde of creatures. Picking the right combination of tools can be key to making it back alive.
When we drop into the complex, its halls are eerily quiet. A squad member scans each door before we open it expecting to find a pack of enemies waiting for us, but four doors in we haven't seen a thing. The tension hanging heavily in the air continues to build with each empty chamber, but eventually the scanner lights up with activity. We move carefully so not to disturb the enemies, and they stand quietly, waiting to spring into action at the command of the scout. These creatures extend visible tendrils into the atmosphere hoping to pick up movement. Once they sense someone is there they let out a shrill cry to spring the other enemies into action. Moving around these tendrils can be dangerous, but we arm our melee weapons and successfully take this small forward group out stealthily to avoid a bigger firefight.
Moving further into the complex, we come across a command console near a locked door. These computers look like they are running DOS, and players can even type commands into the prompt. Since we need the key to the door, we query its location into the console and it gives us a new objective marker to pursue. 10 Chambers doesn't want to hold players' hands in these circumstances, and instead wants the teams to problem-solve solutions. Players also have to work together to figure out how to open locked supply crates.
Going further into the complex, things finally get hairy. Once alerted, the enemies come fast and furiously, forcing players to stay in constant communication and never stray too far from one other. Friendly fire compounds the issue, as a few wayward bullets can do the creature's job for them. These frantic battles create great circumstances for heroic moments, like the last person standing trying frantically to survive the wave so they can revive their fallen comrades. Failing to do so would kick you back to the start of the mission, though longer challenges will feature some checkpoints with the caveat that they only save during the duration of that play session. If you shut down for the day, you'll have to start from scratch next time. 
Unlike Payday, which sent unrelenting waves at you the moment you get noticed, GTFO is a much more rhythmic experience, shifting from quiet moments of stealth and resource gathering to the more deadly enemy onslaughts. Giving players a breather is a welcome evolution, as supplies can be scarce and making sure everyone has at least a few clips and access to a med kit is crucial before engaging the next encounter.
Once we find the keycard, the real firefight begins. We head back to the Apex door that has the object of interest behind its walls, and insert the key. This starts a bioscan, where all four players must stand in a highlighted circle to get the door to unlock. Apex doors make you go through multiple bioscans before opening, during which waves of enemies continue to rush toward your position.
Preparing for these battles is crucial; we make sure to cover the floor in front of us with glue to slow their approach and position the sentry so it covers two hallways. Our original plan was sound, but in moving from the second to the third bioscan we forget to move the sentry to a forward position. When the horrors descend on our position, the sentry picks up the movement and starts firing. This proves to be a problem considering we are standing in between the monsters and the turret. Friendly fire – 1, squad – 0. Thus ends our run in the underground; another team of prisoners will have to complete the job. 
GTFO pulls no punches. The missions can be unapologetically hard, demanding constant communication between squad mates if you want to make it to the extraction point. The missions are tiered so players must complete three jobs before they get to one that provides a loot drop. 10 Chamber Collective founder Ulf Andersson says they want to slow the reward drip so each time you get an item it feels more meaningful. Some missions could take upwards of six hours to complete, but the studio also plans to offer more breezy "lunch" missions as well. 
The gameplay felt tight, and the studio is aiming for 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Given those parameters, you may be surprised to learn it's running on the Unity engine, a popular mobile platform that is making strides into the PC and console platforms. 
10 Chambers Collective hopes to have a beta out on PC by the end of the year, but won't release it until they feel it's ready. I only experienced a brief slice of gameplay, but the emphasis on teamwork and suffocating tension make this one worth watching. 

Amazon has discounted NBA 2K18 to $19.99 on PS4 and Xbox One.

UPDATE: You can alternatively still find them on Amazon if reports of them being sold out at ThinkGeek are true. One of 2016's hottest items was the NES Classic Edition. Unfortunately, Nintendo's miniature retro ...]

Deck-building roguelike Slay the Spire has sold a million copies since its Early Access launch in November. Developer Mega Crit games announced the milestone along with one of Slay the Spire’s regular updates Thursday, along with the usual list of tweaks, fixes, and additions to the game.
“Just a few days ago, we reached 1,000,000 players for Slay the Spire,” Mega Crit wrote in the Steam post accompanying Weekly Update 31, which adds a Custom game mode. “It’s been a wild ride as the two of (and a great number of collaborators!) started work on this game almost 3 years ago.”
There are some great CCGs out there. Here's our list of the .
If you aren’t one of the million players who have checked out Slay the Spire, it’s a run-based roguelike with an FTL-style system for moving through a series of dungeons, with monster encounters represented by fast-paced card combat. As you defeat monsters and find treasure, you’ll add to your deck, which changes completely based on which of three characters you pick at the beginning. It’s simple enough to pick up and play, but there’s a lot of complexity in its card synergies and building strategies.
“The feedback and reception for the game has been far more than any developer could hope for and we’d like to sincerely thank all of you for playing the game, creating amazing content, and even starting riots over boots,” . “We hope to pay you all back by working our butts off.”

With the PlayStation Days of Play sale winding down - by which, I mean, today's the last day of that promotion - you may want to snap up one of the while you still can. Fortunately, Amazon's just listed one of the better options we've seen so far.
For a limited time and while the stock still remains, you can get yourself a bundle of a PSVR headset, a PS4 camera, and copies of PSVR Worlds and the excellent Superhot VR, . As a die-hard fan of the original Superhot, I can tell you that it's one of the most innovative shooters in years and its virtual reality companion is one hell of an experience for a time-based puzzle-shooter...thing.
That price discounts the regular cost of the PSVR starter bundle already, so you're getting that copy of Superhot VR at no extra cost. It also makes this bundle one of the last bundles remaining in stock after the Days of Play discounts have meant a lot of the other variants (Skyrim VR, Doom VFR) are well and truly sold out by now.

The Nintendo Switch is receiving a permanent price drop in Canada today. Nintendo of Canada announced that the MSRP for the Nintendo Switch is dropping to $379.99. The price change has taken effect at Walmart, Best Buy, EB Games, London Drugs, Toys R Us, Shoppers Drug Mart, The Source and Amazon.ca, according to Nintendo.

Amazon has discounted The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts to $23.59, The Art of Fire Emblem: Awakening to $27.19 and The Art of Splatoon to $27.19.

From Doctor Who's Russell T. Davies comes the true story of a British politician's attempt to murder his lover, featuring a better-than-ever Hugh Grant.