Posted in: Movies, Video Games | Tagged: 505 Games, Ember, entertainment, gaming, How To Survive: Storm Warning, New York Comic Con 2014, video games

A First Look At 505 Games' Newest Titles – Ember And How To Survive: Storm Warning

Published Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:30:46 -0500

by Hannah Means Shannon

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By Madeline Ricchiuto

505 Games held a media showcase to show off their newest titles at New York Comic Con, including the expanded How to Survive: Storm Warning edition and the mobile game Ember.

Ember, despite being a mobile OS game, features 20-30 hours of gameplay with a heavy Baldur's Gate influence. As in the old Baldur's Gate games, you have an "isometric" view and the battles are turn-based. The dungeons will take about na hour to get through, so this is not a game to casually play for five minutes and then put down, despite the fact that it's on a mobile platform.

All NPCs have a full day schedule, and the day-night cycle takes about an hour. You can easily pick up, drag, and drop items, so customizing your house is easier than Skyrim. If you want to nest in a video game, Ember is the title for you.

Its also the closest to an old school RPG I've ever seen debut for iOS, Android, and Windows devices. Its a fantastic game for someone who likes story and world-building in their games, but would rather play on a tablet or phone than on a PC or console. I can't say I can argue with that standpoint, as I've often played games on my phone while sitting in front of a console because the phone is already in my hand and sometimes you really do enjoy having that auto-battle feature.

While I saw the game while it was still in development, I'll be very interested to see it launch.

How to Survive: Storm Warning is already out on Xbox One and will be coming to PS4 on November 4th. Much like the original game, you receive survival guides written by the mysterious Kovac as you move along. Each guide teaches you a bit more about the game and how to survive it, which is a much less clunky tutorial mode than it may seem.

You get dropped at the edge of an island filled with zombies and have no weapons on you, so survival is all about collecting items and using them as best you can. Crafting will save your life, so if you don't like mixing random ingredients together, this may not be your genre.

The Storm Warning edition expands the gameplay over more islands than the original release. Weather, as you may have guessed, takes a large part in this version of the game. You will get stuck randomly by lightening if you walk around in a storm with a metal weapon or armor. It will kill you. Probably not the first time, but eventually. Rain will put out fires. Lightening will charge generators but also kill you. Blinding fog, lava pits, and toxic clouds are also found.

There are also random island-dwelling dangers like crocodiles that will also try and kill you, along with the zombies. There is an endless "escort" type mission mode, which is terrifyingly hard. Challenge and Barricade modes provide extra hours of gameplay, and they're worth it.

Madeline Ricchiuto is a freelance writer and editor with a fondness for comics, movies, and video games. She writes for TheBlot, examiner.com, and sometimes even print magazines.

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