onWingsofWind is at it again with The Sims 4 right now. It's one of her favorite games so you can expect a lot of entertainment here. Watch the continuing adventures of Goth Girl as one of the more interesting police officers around. See if she has what it takes to solve crimes or will she just mooch off the crime scenes she visits.

The story for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's zombie mode has Scarlett and her band of friends looking for her father. The journey will take the four through various locations and periods in time. The zombie mode has been one of the more popular features of the Black Ops series so I know a lot of folks are looking forward to this one.

More information about the zombie mode will be revealed at Activision's ComiCon panel, which takes place Thursday, June 19th at 1PM PST. If you're there, you can head to room #6BFC to see it in person where Jason Blundell and Craig Houston will be talking about it.

October 12th is the day Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 hits the store shelves for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Since launching into Open Beta in May 2018, monster-hunting MMO Dauntless has blazed quite a trail through the gaming landscape. Now, in celebration of hitting the two million player mark, Phoenix Labs has announced the pending release of a major new update that is sure to shake things up with the game's dedicated (and vocal) fanbase.

The Coming Storm, scheduled to be released on August 9^th, will make some major changes to the Dauntless world, bringing new characters, new quests, and new gear (including a ranged weapon!)

According to the press release, “The Coming Storm begins when an Ostian Dreadnaught, bristling with industrial might and an indignant crew, crashes into Ramsgate, the central hub in Dauntless, reshaping the sprawling city and introducing players to a variety of new NPCs, stories, and quests. A new Behemoth, Koshai, the Sovereign of Thorns, stirs beyond the horizon. Members of the Ostian faction also bring with them new technology. Players will be able to craft and wield new gear and weaponry to take on the Behemoth threat - including a explosive new grenades and the first truly ranged weapon: the Ostian Repeaters.”

That is a ton of new content. The press release goes on to explain that the addition of the new Behemoth will throw off the Dauntless ecosystem, resulting in changed behaviors for existing Behemoths. That ought to keep everyone on their toes.

“The Dauntless community is one of the most vocal and passionate groups of people in gaming, and they’ve helped us shape Dauntless into what it is today, and what it will become in the future,” said Jesse Houston, CEO and co-founder of Phoenix Labs. “With The Coming Storm we’re putting community feedback into action , debuting the first fully ranged weapon, and players will see a decidedly new and fresh Dauntless experience on August 9.”

Players that have yet to try Dauntless can sign up here. If you haven’t tried it, Dauntless is worth a look. The game is already pretty big, and it is clear that the dev team is continuing to work on and develop the game further. Looks like Dauntless is here to stay.

Imagine that you have been a loyal consumer/player of Digital Combat Solutions (DCS) World, staying true to the purveyor of the absolute best military air combat simulator through three maps and a lot of relatively expensive ($79.99 and below) DLC airplanes to go with them. You have a goodly amount of lucre invested, in other words. Now imagine your confusion when Modern Air Combat is announced and that it will include no less than 14 of those very same airplanes. While no price has been announced, you're pretty sure that it's going to be less than the hundreds of dollars you had to part with to get to the same place. 

I need not imagine that scenario. I am living it. Not surprisingly, my first reaction was, well, not something I can share here. A little more research indicated that perhaps it's not as unfair (strong word, that; perhaps "irritating" would be better) to veteran players as it first appears. Looking through the list of planes to be included, it appears that most of them are being plucked from Flaming Cliffs 3, which is essentially the kid's version of DCS world. The biggest distinction is one of complexity; Flaming Cliffs airplanes are fairly simplistic, while DCS World planes are typically study-level models. Of the five models that are based on DCS World models, there is only one that isn't showing its age; the other four consistently go on sale for 50% off. Also regarding those five models, it appears that they will be "dumbed-down" to Flaming Cliffs level.

Frankly, that appeals to me in a way. Many of the current DCS World planes are so complicated that I tend to be able to be proficient in one of them a time (currently this would be the AV-8B Harrier). Some, such as the A-10C, are so complicated that I can only figure out how to fire the gun and randomly drop unguided bombs. I would enjoy a little less complexity at times, as long as it didn't remove the plethora of clickable cockpit controls. Much of the simplification will be around cockpit systems controls, but a goodly portion will also have to do with the controllability of the aircraft in flight. Many of the planes included can be a real handful even for an experienced pilot armed with high a quality HOTAS and rudder controls, which would render them unflyable for a beginner using just a cheap joystick and nothing else. Reportedly, the MAC planes will be so easy to fly that it can be done with nothing more than keyboard and mouse. I find that hard to believe, but there it is. I would go so far as to say that it might be possible to fly them that way, but probably not to be able to fly them well.

Digital Dynamics also goes to pains to point out that the terrain/battlefields will remain as rich and complex as DCS World, but are likely to be geographically smaller. Simplified airplane controls do NOT mean that the combat environment will also be easy. It will not be.

Neither pricing or a firm release date have been set, but they have stated that we can expect to see it in the fall of this year.

Hello Games has dropped a brief trailer for their upcoming No Man's Sky Next update, the fourth in a series of free content patches for the game that originally released in 2016. This trailer shows off a lot of the multiplayer co-op and a few new surprises, but is devoid of exposition and in that regard is heavily reminiscent of the game's original teaser trailer. It all looks pretty promising.

When No Man's Sky dropped in 2016, it could charitably be called an early alpha as it was missing a ton of promised features and riddled with bugs and crashes. Hello Games has done a lot to flesh out the experience with free patches ever since and the game is in a far more complete shape now, but I personally find that it all still feels rather awkward, and the gameplay inevitably degenerates into a cludgy grind like so many other survival sandboxes. Here's hoping that when Next arrives on July 24th, it not only brings the long-awaited multiplayer, but also many quality-of-life upgrades so that No Man's Sky becomes the entry-level space exploration sim the fanbase always wanted it to be.

As if the lines at San Diego Comic Con weren't nightmarish enough, Nintendo is bringing its heavy-hitters to the show for all attendees to play. The biggest draw will be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but the Nintendo Gaming Lounge in the ballroom of the Marriott Marquis and Marina will also host Mario Tennis Aces, FIFA 19, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, the Switch port of DK Country Tropical Freeze, and Super Mario Odyssey for the 3 people who still haven't gotten around to playing it.

For a lot of people this will be their first change to go hands-on with the new Smash Bros, so I'm interested to hear more perspectives on how it's playing and how it stacks up compared to Wii U and Brawl. The gaming lounge opens on July 19 and runs through the 22nd, but if you have a preview night badge, you can get in on the night of July 18th.

Slitherine Games has recently put out a couple of videos for the recently released Warhammer 40,000: Gladium - Relics of War that introduces three of the four factions in the game: the Orks, the Astra Militarum, and the Necrons. Each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses to make playing them unique to the others. For instance, the the Astra Militarum's strengths are it's huge numbers and mighty vehicles, the Orks are heavily muscled, aggressive, and pretty large, while the Necrons use technology that much more advanced than those of the other factions. Warhammer 40,000: Gladuis - Relics of War is now available on Steam and GOG.com.

Compulsion Games and Gearbox Publishing just released a new trailer for We Happy Few, titled "The ABCs of Happiness." The trailer, which is a whopping five and a half minutes long, focuses on introducing the games three playable characters: Arthur Hastings, Sally Boyle, and Ollie Starkey. Each character has their own weapons and skills to help them navigate and eventually escape Wellington Wells.

For anyone unfamiliar with the game, We Happy Few is a survival adventure game taking place in the fictional town of Wellington Wells in the mid-1960s. A significant population of Wellington Wells is addicted to hallucinogenic called Joy, which suppresses basically all negative memories and experiences, leaving the users in a state of happiness. The entire society that formed within Wellington Wells wear smiling masks to symbolize their happiness.

In the game, the player sees through the eyes of characters who are off their joy, referred to as 'downers' by the populace. Each character has their own goals, but the central objective of the game is to escape Wellington Wells. 

We Happy Few has been sitting around in early access for a while now, but I've been holding off for a full release as it seemed like a game that would be more enjoyable as a finished product. With the release date of August 10th just around the corner, I feel like I can finally start getting excited to dive into the game. The world-building and story look genuinely interesting, and hopefully the game-play diversity between the characters will keep things fresh and interesting.

In celebration of Amazon’s Prime Day, Twitch Prime has been giving away a free game every day for a couple of weeks. The games show up on a sort of rolling cycle - staying active for several days - so even if you haven’t kept up, you can swing by Twitch and grab several free games.

While some really incredible games have cycled through during this promotion, today is one of the highlights of the giveaway. Tyranny, the isometric RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, is today’s free offering. Released in 2016, Tyranny is one of those games that seems to never go down in price, and rarely goes on sale (it is currently $44.99 on Steam).

With a “Very Positive” ranking on Steam, and an 80 on Metacritic, Tyranny is something of a critical darling. In fact, many of the folks criticizing Tyranny don’t seem to have many issues with the game on a technical level, instead expressing some misgivings about the overall dark tone and nihilistic story. In Tyranny, the player character is a high-ranking member in the military, serving the evil overlord Kyros. Kyros holds the fantasy world of Terratus in an iron fist of terror, and most of the player’s decisions in the game center not around whether they will commit evil, but more around what sort of evil they will commit, and how efficiently they will commit said evil. It’s a dark game.

For those that are not familiar with Twitch Prime, it’s pretty simple. If you have Amazon Prime, you can have Twitch Prime for free. You just have to link your Twitch and Amazon accounts. This brings you a steady stream of free games, in-game goodies and surprises. As an added bonus, Amazon recently announced that any teens in your household can glom onto your Twitch Prime account for free.

It seems every other week is an Iron Banner or a Faction Rally in Destiny 2. This week Iron Banner is in the rotation. But the real news from This Week at Bungie (TWaB) is the return of Daily Bounties. Daily Bounties were a great way to get a little extra loot and faction boost while doing things you would probably be doing anyway in the original Destiny's endgame. Like most things Destiny 1 it was absent in Destiny 2, the sequel being the lesser in game in almost every respect, especially in the endgame and things to do. Essentially Bounties in Destiny 2 are going to come from the many vendors spread throughout the Destiny-verse and will dole out XP and loot as they are completed, no need to trek all the way back to the vendor to turn them in. That is an improvement. 

The next news in TWaB is around some Forsaken preview exclusives in Game Informer and a good bit of info about update 1.2.3 while lands on Tuesday with the reset: PC is getting Clan Chat, Forge weapons form the The Curse of Osiris that have been unlocked will now be purchasable from Brother Vance, a few bug fixes on exotic armors, and some of the more frustrating Heroic Strike modifiers are getting a nerf.

Lastly TWaB goes into some housekeeping around the Moments of Triumph and Prestige Raid Lairs. Moments of Triumph is live on Bungie.net but will not actually show up in the game July 31st. The two Raid Lairs are going to go offline with the 1.2.3 update on Tuesday. Bungie just wants to give everyone a chance to get the new patch downloaded so all start from the same starting block for a crack at World's First. The schedule for when the lairs go live is:

• Leviathan, Eater of Worlds Prestige, 11 AM PDT on July 17
• Leviathan, Spire of Stars Prestige, 10 AM PDT on July 18