New Mortal Kombat X trailer unmasks the Predator!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMTA8HaKTMU

 The Predator joins the Mortal Kombat X lineup tomorrow, for players who have sprung for the Premium Edition of the game or the Kombat Pack DLC.
Everyone else will have to wait another week, but you can pass a little bit of that time (roughly 90 seconds of it) watching the intergalactic hunter in action in the new MKX gameplay trailer. Part of me thinks it's not really fair that the P-Man gets to use wrist blades, a spear, and a shoulder-mounted laser in what is ostensibly a fistfight. It's not that far out of line, I suppose—it's not like everyone else in the game is lacing up the gloves and memorizing the Marquess of Queensbury—but does he really have to use all three at once? That's some serious fatalizing right there. The kill on Jason at the end is a nice nod to the film, though.
 The Predator goes on sale for non-Kombat Pack owners on July 14.

December Cover Revealed – Just Cause 3

It’s been more than four long years since Swedish developer Avalanche Studios released the outrageous open-world game Just Cause 2. Players gravitated to gunfights atop moving vehicles, the versatile parachute, and the innovative tether that could link nearly any two objects, humans, or a combination of the two. The 400-square-mile world provided the ideal backdrop for players to go nuts, with many players hitting the 100-hour mark to earn 100-percent completion or to simply goof around with the wild physics.
The mod and YouTube community kept interest in the game alive for years after launch and eventually pushed sales to more than six million units.
 In 2015, the beloved series returns with Just Cause 3 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. We got the chance to be the first people outside of the studio to play not just 10 or 20 minutes, but several hours of the game, set in a fictional Mediterranean archipelago.
The time flew by as we tried out the vastly improved parachute and grapple mechanics, terrorized the latest dictator’s well-defended bases, and soared through the sky with the all-new wingsuit. Just Cause has never played this smoothly, and as you’ll see in the cover story launching digitally today, it’s never looked this good.

The rest of our December issue is packed with great content. Our feature on the Metroid-inspired, 2D title Axiom Verge shines the spotlight on the ambitious one-man development team, Tom Happ.
The Indie Game Development Primer gathers advice from an all-star panel of top developers in the field to help the next generation get their games off the ground. Our Classic section this month offers a rare look at mid-70s sketches for a four-player version of Pong and commentary from the industrial designer who made them.
 Print subscribers should see their issues arriving in the next week or two, but it's available right now if you subscribe digitally (available on PC/Mac, iPad,Android, and Google Play). You can also get the latest issue through third-party apps on Nook, Kindle, and Zinio starting tomorrow. To switch your print subscription to digital, click here, or to create a new subscription to the digital edition, click here. Throughout the month we’ll have all manner of video interviews, written features on Rico and the new world he flies around, a special edition podcast, and much more

Mortal kombat x review

What do you want from a Mortal Kombat game? Chances are you’ll start with something about violence—guts, shattered bones, gonads destroyed like stepped-on grapes. Lower on your list you might mention balanced fighting. A story—something about elder gods and damnation—is probably a final afterthought, like cistern blocks on a shopping list. Mortal Kombat X delivers all these. It has horrendous, hilarious fatalities which draw gasps then revolted laughter; the most enjoyable, immediate fighting of any Mortal Kombat game; and, quite surprisingly, an actual story.
 Admittedly, it’s more gore than Gore Vidal: QTEs of cartoon fistfights and X-rays of exploding testicles illustrate a world where blind swordsmen and fallen Hollywood idols lead military incursions. However, unlike any previous game in the series, it adds marrow to Mortal Kombat’s narrative skeleton. Taking place over 25 years, it fleshes out the histories of notable characters by introducing us to their children (all of whom inherit the fisticuffs gene). It’s batshit, obviously, but so lovingly executed that I was swept along regardless. The story would be irrelevant if the fighting was rubbish.
Mortal Kombat has always felt brutish compared to the elegant flow of Street Fighter 4. It's about heavy-fisted, filthy pub-fu, with a focus not just on defeating your opponent, but destroying them utterly. This is the most elegant incarnation yet. The returning super meter—borrowed from Street Fighter—adds complexity, allowing you to interrupt an opponent’s combo by using up two bars of the meter and create openings for a counterattack. X-ray moves function like traumatic ultra combos, diverting a fight with damaging and humiliating specials. I quickly found myself experimenting with Ex variations of familiar moves, tagging them onto the end of combos for increased damage. Fighting is the only thing this game takes seriously: startup frames are even shown in the menus, making Mortal Kombat X accessible, but still rich with tactical options.
 It’s batshit, obviously, but so lovingly executed that I was swept along regardless. Each fighter has three variations, similar to Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance but without the option to switch during play. Let’s use Scorpion as an example, because fire ninjas. Inferno tricks him out with demonic minions, useful for zoning and gnawing ankles; Hellfire is an offensive build utilising fireballs and flame attacks; and Ninjutsu is his classic move set with added swords.
Core specials are the same throughout—it would be monstrous to rob you of that iconic spear—but the stances add a strategic thrust to every encounter: think roshambo, except the loser gets their ribcage made into a glockenspiel. Be prepared for minor changes to your favourite characters, though. After five minutes spent trying to summon hellfire, worried I was messing up the combo, I discovered it wasn’t in the build I’d chosen. This might frustrate some, but it made me experiment with every variation. It looks as lovely as a game featuring sliced tongues and smashed brains can. The x-ray moves are a highlight, full of detailed splintering spines and skulls which crack like own-brand Easter eggs. Backgrounds are great, too. Like Injustice, they incorporate contextual attacks, but Mortal Kombat is better because it lets me throw old ladies at my enemies.
However, there are notable PC-specific problems. Screen tear is apparent even on high-end machines even with vsync seemingly activated. In fact, unlike Mortal Kombat 9 (or whatever it wasn’t called), there’s no option to disable vsync in the menus—you’ll have dig into appdata or tinker with your graphics card. While it runs at a buttery 60fps during fights, cutscenes and x-ray moves drop to 30fps. More worryingly, I had trouble making it playable on a machine which met minimum specs; only when I switched to a meatier PC could I enjoy the game to its fullest. They’re notable problems with an otherwise excellent game, and it makes the PC version feel under-optimised.

Online, it's even shakier. At least a third of my ranked matches choked and died, usually at the point things became interesting. Much like the offline game, it's more frustrating because the ideas are so promising. There are stacks of competitive options, from standard player matches to winner-stays-on king of the hill. Matches also inform an ongoing faction war: you pledge your allegiance to a familiar Mortal Kombat organisation, such as the Lin Kuei or Black Dragon, and your wins count towards a weekly faction ranking. However, it's difficult to remain engaged in a pretend ninja feud when every third match creaks like a shopping trolley dragged from a bog.
Each frame in a fighting game matters, and Mortal Kombat's online simply isn't sturdy enough to remain competitive. Tech issues aside, MKX is crammed with extra stuff. Challenge towers function like arcade mode, setting you against a number of increasingly difficult opponents. There are some pleasingly daft variations: Test Your Luck throws in a new modifier every round, anything from tilting stages to exploding enemies. Even the Krypt, which houses all the unlockable goodies, is treated with lively reverence. Rather than presenting you with numbing menus, it’s Legend of Grimrock with grave robbing: a first person adventure through classic
Mortal Kombat locations.
It takes time to unlock it all, but I’m fine with that: it’s part of the series’ heritage, going back to Deadly Alliance. DLC and pre-order characters are trickier. They’re present in every fighting game, but it’s miserable to see Goro smiling at you from the character select screen, like a smug, premium-priced prick. In terms of content, you’re getting your money’s worth: this is the most complete Mortal Kombat game ever, predictably brilliant at schlock and surprisingly adept at story. Unfortunately, a limping port lessens the experience for anyone without a godlike machine.

Batman Arkham Knight

— Everything you need to know

Batman: Arkham Knight is almost here, so we've collected the most important details in one place for convenience. We'll keep this page updated with all the latest before and after release. The Batman has gone through the wringer in the Arkham series. Every game he starts with a nice clean suit, but it always ends up torn and scuffed from combat with Gotham's ceaseless stream of evil loons. Some like to argue that the first game, Arkham Asylum, is still the most perfectly formed package of the four. Those people might worry about Arkham Knight's move towards an even bigger and prettier city. Much stays the same, however. Batman still smoulders with the quiet, authoritative anger of returning voice actor, Kevin Conroy, the goons are still improbably ripped and villains still love to taunt Batman by radio, or by projecting their ugly faces onto huge screens scattered throughout Gotham.
There's going to be another mini-Batcave to house the Dark Knight's new gadgets, and there we'll even meet Oracle in person. Most recently, the DLC and season pass were revealed, including the opportunity to play as Batgirl, and we got a trailer and a bunch of new screenshots. What's the release date? Arkham Knight was due to arrive in 2014, but Warner Brothers have delayed the game a couple of times since. It's now due out worldwide on June 23, 2015, unless the Joker throws a wrench in the works. What's it about? You once again step into the armoured kicking-boots of the world's greatest detective on the eve of a city-wide disaster in Gotham. Citizens have fled after a series of fear-gas attacks organised by Scarecrow, leaving the GCPD and Batman to police a city five times the size of Arkham City's playable area.
The Batmobile—
drivable for the first time in the series—ought to help, but Batman's new armoury will be tested by a dastardly squad of classic villains, and one entirely new one called the Arkham Knight. Rocksteady describes this as the “finale” to their trilogy, quietly discounting Warner Brothers Montreal's Batman: Arkham Origins from the series. Arkham Knight should make sense to players who haven't played the other Arkham games, but there's already a lot of history between Batman and the returning villains, and the conclusion of Arkham City will definitely influence Batman in Arkham Knight. For that reason, City's the one to play if you want to prepare yourself, followed by Arkham Asylum, followed by the average prequel, Arkham Origins. The Arkham Wiki has a comprehensive plot summary of the entire series if you're rather read your way in.

Who are the villains? The “Gotham is Mine” trailer showed a broad spectrum of famous bad guys. Poison Ivy, The Penguin, Scarecrow, Firefly, Harley Quinn, Two-Face and The Riddler have all turned up in the Arkham series before, and will appear again. Their roles in the grand conspiracy aren't known yet, but The Riddler will run underground race tracks as part of a series of challenge caves. The Arkham Knight is a new villain created by Rocksteady in collaboration with DC. Not much is known about him yet, but we have a few crazy theories about his identity. He's shown standing at the front of an automated army of drones and tanks, which you'll have to take out using the Batmobile's completely non-lethal roof-mounted cannon. Who are the heroes? Batman won't be alone. Robin, Nightwing, and Catwoman turned up in the “All Who Follow You” trailer which also shows Batman performing some acrobatic co-operative takedowns. This is part of a new “Dual Play” feature which Rocksteady says will “allow players to seamlessly switch between The Dark Knight and his allies” in combat. Azrael also turns up briefly in that trailer, but it's unclear whether he will be playable, or do much other than start fires on rooftops and mumble about “the prophecy”. There's more. Batgirl will be playable in Arkham Knight's post-launch DLC plan and the Red Hood “story pack” is available as part of a pre-order DLC pack. She's no hero, but Harley Quinn gets her own pre-order DLC mission as well. Batman: Arkham Knight has a lot of DLC. Have you played it? Sam's piloted the Batmobile through Arkham Knight's refined and greatly-expanded version of Gotham city, but only fell in love when he found out you can use it to help you in fights and pull down walls. He also discovered the new contextual combat moves which see Batman ramming his enemies heads into environmental hazards like live fuse boxes. Non-lethally, of course. What's happened recently? A live action trailer was released. Rocksteady dropped a few details about their expensive post-launch DLC plan, which includes a mission that lets you play as Batgirl. The wallet-busting premium edition was announced. The game was slightly delayed from early June to late June. We blame Calendar Man. Batman: Arkham Knight is rated M, so expect fiercer punching this time round. What are the best trailers? The seven-minute "Officer Down" trailer, and the recent "Time to go to War" trailer below, most clearly show how the game will play, and give us a better look at the city than the cinematic trailers. The Ace Chemicals Plant walkthrough gives a good account of how the Batmobile can help Batman solve environmental puzzles (and also shows lots of punching). The rousing "Gotham Is Mine" trailer lays out the stakes nicely. And then there's this live action trailer. Huh. What are the system requirements?
Arkham Knight's system requirements are demanding, especially if you're keen to run the game on ultra settings. That 55GB install's going to eat up a big chunk of space if you're running an SSD. 

Minimum System Requirements

OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Graphics Memory: 2 GB
DirectX®: 11 Network: Broadband Internet Connection
Required Hard Drive Space: 45 GB

Recommended System Requirements

OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Graphics Memory: 3 GB
DirectX®: 11 Network: Broadband Internet Connection
Required Hard Drive Space: 55 GB

 ULTRA System Requirements

OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Graphics Memory: 3 GB
DirectX®: 11 Network: Broadband Internet Connection
Required Hard Drive Space: 55 GB