Category Archives: Collection Development

New Battle Royale Game: Apex Legends from Respawn Entertainment

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Respawn Entertainment is breaking into the “Battle Royale” scrum with Apex Legends, a free-to-play game for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One that takes place within the Titanfall universe (but which doesn’t actually include any Titans).

Available to download right now, Apex Legends will feature a variety of unique characters who will compete against each other to be the last one standing (and to collect loot, of course):

Overview
Conquer with character in Apex Legends, a free-to-play* Battle Royale shooter where legendary characters with powerful abilities team up to battle for fame & fortune on the fringes of the Frontier. Master an ever-growing roster of diverse Legends, deep tactical squad play and bold new innovations that level up the Battle Royale experience… all within a rugged world where anything goes.

Features

  • A Roster of Legendary Characters: Master a growing roster of powerful Legends, each with their own unique personality, strengths and abilities that are easy to pick up but challenging to truly master.
  • Build Your Crew: Choose your Legend and combine their unique skills together with other players to form the ultimate crew.
  • Strategic Battle Royale: Use your abilities (and your wits) to make strategic calls on the fly, adapting your crew’s strengths to meet new challenges as the match evolves.
  • Genre-Evolving Innovation: Experience a brand-new array of innovative features that level up the Battle Royale genre, including Respawn Beacons, Smart Comms, Intelligent Inventory and an all-new way to drop into the action with Jumpmaster deployment.
  • Sweet, Sweet Loot: Drop in and loot up with a host of powerful weapons, diverse attachments and useful armor to protect you in battle. After the fight, collect a wealth of cosmetic options for personalizing your character and weapons, and unlock new ways to show off during the match.

Respawn uploaded a trio of new trailers to help prospective players learn more about how Apex Legends works. A Cinematic Trailer, a Gameplay Trailer, and a Gameplay Deep Dive Trailer have all been embedded after the “Continue Reading” link. Continue reading →

Video Game Librarian’s Favorite Games of 2018

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Every year, I feel I’m slowly drifting further and further away from gaming’s EPIC titles. I absolutely appreciate the artistry and craft behind games like Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Far Cry 5, but I find myself having no trouble passing them over (though I’ll eventually get around to Spider-Man).

I still found a lot of fun new titles to love in 2018, and you can see what they are after the “Continue Reading” link. Continue reading →

Best of Gamescom 2018 Winners Selected by Gamescom Committee

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gamescomEvery year, Germany’s Digital Gaming Culture Foundation (Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur) supervises the Gamescom Committee, a small group of journalists who choose the best games that were present at the Gamescom expo. The Gamescom expo is held in the Summer, and serves as the European equivalent to the Los Angeles-based E3 Expo.

While most of these titles are still in development, you should keep them in mind when you add games to your collection this Fall and into 2019.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was named “Best of Gamescom,” and the full list of winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading →

Fortnite Overview @ Games In Libraries

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Another library-centric overview of Fortnite, the new “Battle Royale” shooter from Epic Games, has popped up on the Games In Libraries blog:

Everyone and their brother (and sister) lately has been on about Fortnite, the new free-to-play “battle royale” game from Epic Games. Originally launched as a “survival” game akin to Minecraft with a heavy building component in 2017, Fortnite added a “battle royale” mode that September based on the model created by “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” – one hundred players parachute onto a battlefield, with the last one standing the winner. Since then, it has grown into a billion-dollar juggernaut due to the profits it rakes in over optional elements like skins, outfits and dance moves.

Whether you’re looking at the Games In Libraries blog (or Teen Services Underground or School Library Journal), they all agree that Fortnite is extremely popular with younger players, and that it’s colorful (and downright wacky) presentation makes it the perfect addition to your game programming lineup.

August 2018’s Free Games With Gold for Xbox One/Xbox 360

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Next month’s additions to the Games With Gold service are brought to you by the letters F, O, and R. Microsoft announced the monthly freebies on the Xbox Wire blog yesterday, and Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be able to download Forza Horizon 2: 10th Anniversary Edition (Xbox One), For Honor (Xbox One), Dead Space 3 (Xbox 360), and Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (Xbox 360) during the next 30 days.

Click here for more information about all four selections from the Games With Gold program this month… Continue reading →

Best of E3 2018 Winners Selected by Game Critics Awards

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e3Every year, the Game Critics Awards, a collection of editors from more than 50 major publications that cover the video game industry, get together to choose the best games at the E3 Expo.

While all of these titles are still in development, you should keep them in mind when you add games to your collection this Fall and into 2019.

Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake was named “Best of Show,” and the full list of winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading →

“Fortnite is a Win for Librarians Looking to Boost Teen Attendance” @ School Library Journal

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Looks like we’re talking about Fortnite and “Battle Royale” games again.

Fortnite is available as a free download for the PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and mobile devices, and tech writer Brian Seto McGrath recently penned an excellent argument for why the wildly colorful shooter should be available at your library in School Library Journal:

For the uninitiated, Fortnite is one of the new breed of “battle royale” games, in which up to a hundred players descend onto an island to build fortifications while battling it out with rifles until one person is left standing—think Minecraft meets The Hunger Games.

Public librarians are taking up the challenge, and they’re finding the library can be the perfect place for Fortnite. Several libraries around the country are holding Fortnite game nights this summer. It’s a strategy to get kids in the door who may also become regular visitors to other teen programs.

Librarians say that Fortnite events they’ve hosted have drawn more kids to their libraries’ programs than ever before. For the teen and tween librarians who organized the events, the real success is measured by positive interactions the kids are having with the game—and with each other.

I shared my own thoughts about Fortnite with McGrath for the article, and I definitely think the idea of including Fortnite in a library’s game offerings is the right call: “They’re playing together and they’re talking, and they’re extremely good about making sure everyone gets a turn and feels included. [And they] can scream and shout because it’s their space. No one is going to shush them. This kind of group dynamic is just fun.”

And don’t forget about the great “Battle Royale” genre overview that Teen Services Underground did a few weeks ago.

Battle Royale Games: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite @ Teen Services Underground

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Combining the gameplay style from third-person shooters like Uncharted and Tomb Raider with the “Kill or Be Killed” rules from The Hunger Games, “Battle Royale” games are all the rage among video game players these days.

If your patrons have been asking for these games and you feel left out of the loop, don’t worry, Programming Librarian Dustan Archer has published a great overview of the genre’s two biggest titles, Fortnite: Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, at Teen Services Underground:

Battle Royale is, at its heart, a last person standing survival game. In most games of this genre, players have to acquire weapons, armor, healing kits and other items in order to eliminate other players and survive other players’ attacks, all while staying within the ever-shrinking ‘safe zone’. This ‘safe zone’ shrinks over the duration of the game to encourage players to come into contact with each other and force combat to occur, rather than allow players to ‘camp’ – or stay in one place – and wait for an enemy to show up without the risk of revealing their own position. In many of these games, players can stay outside of the safe zone for a brief period of time but will lose health steadily until they re-enter the safe zone.

I’ve played about a dozen rounds of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and even in its unfinished state (“PUBG” is currently available as an “Early Access” title), the game is incredibly well done. The action is intense, and being able to survive against 99 other players feels like a real achievement.

Like Dustan, I think that both “Battle Royale” games would make an excellent addition to the game collection of any library.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds can be purchased for the PC and Xbox One for $19.99 (but only as a downloadable game). Fortnite: Battle Royale is also only available as a downloadable game, but it can be downloaded for free on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.