Tech2.Games S01E08: A fist of doom, free tickets to the Death Star and no more ‘Game Over’ screens

By Videep Vijay KumarSo, the Castlevania Netflix Series (you know, the one that gets way more attention from this column than it deserves) is now available to watch if you’re a subscriber. Interestingly, Adi Shankar, the creator of the series also confirmed on Facebook that he’s working on creating an Assassin’s Creed series. I’m personally all for these sorts of adaptations, rather than the overly ambitious live action Ponzi schemes we’ve been subjected to these past few decades. In other news, there’s some good stuff for Origin Access subscribers, Street Fighter fans who accidentally purchased Overwatch and Lord of Rings fans this week.Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 are coming to Origin/EA AccessIt was announced in a blog post that two of last year’s best shooters will be making their way to EA’s Origin Access subscription service soon. The timeframe is a bit vague, but “soon” could imply that they will be available in the coming months at worst. For now, though, subscribers already get access to some cool games such as Oxenfree, Rebel Galaxy, The Sims 4 Digital Deluxe Edition and all the downloadable content for 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront (the base game was made available previously).What’s more, subscribers will also get early access to FIFA 18’s “Play First Trial”, usually allowing players a set number of hours of gameplay before release (in FIFA 17’s case, it was 10 hours). The game releases on 29 September. A similar Play First Trial is available to EA Access subscribers on Xbox One for Madden NFL 18, NHL 18 and the resurrected NBA Live 18.Overwatch character Doomfist is now playable on the game’s Public Test RealmAfter much speculation and hype, Doomfist is finally playable on Overwatch PTR. I played as him for a few hours, and he does feel unique, with a strong emphasis on melee combat and combos, he does indeed feel like a character straight out of Street Fighter.With a high skill ceiling, Doomfist is going to be hard to master, and players will need to exploit his mobility and burst damage to get the most out of him. One would also assume that balancing a melee character in what is fundamentally a team-based shooter is going to be a nightmare, and it will be interesting to see how Blizzard is able to achieve this. For now, if you’re a PC Overwatch player, your dreams of performing Sagat-esque uppercuts and punching people until they’re down can be realized on the PTR.Play a story mission, Strike and competitive multiplayer in the Destiny 2 PS4 BetaThe Destiny 2 beta is almost upon us — 18 July for pre-orders and 21 July for everyone else. Developers Bungie released a video a couple of days back talking about the content available. Players will be able to experience the opening story mission, the co-op Strike (presumably, Inverted Spire which has been doing its rounds on YouTube), competitive multiplayer, as well as limited free-roam time in the new social place, the Farm.The PC beta will be out in August, and we can expect it to feature the same volume of content. Destiny 2 releases 6 September on consoles and 24 October on PC.Play Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its DLCs for free this weekend, export your nemesisMonolith’s Shadow of Mordor’s coolest feature was the Nemesis system, where your actions generated a personalized enemy for player-character Talion. This meant that every individual player ended up with a unique experience and foe. What’s more, you can now bring this foe along for the ride in the sequel, Shadow of War.If you own Shadow of Mordor, simply download an update and access the ‘Nemesis Forge’ to export your own unique antagonist to Shadow of War. If you don’t own the game, grab it for free right now (you can play until Sunday midnight) or pay the stupidly low asking price of Rs 567 for the Game of the Year Edition on Steam.PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds retail release delayed, new map showed offSteam sensation PUBG is now officially delayed, with a retail release expected only “before the end of Q4 2017”. Make of that what you will, but the fact the game is still raking in the moolah with a half-finished product on Steam (it seemingly managed to outsell every game during the Steam summer sale even when they were discounted by 70-80 percent), is basically giving PlayerUnknown's Brendan Greene and Bluehole a fair amount of grace time to make the retail release happen.What’s more, we also got a sneak peek into the desert map which could make its way into the game soon.No ‘game over’ for you in Super Mario OdysseyIf Google translate is to be believed, Nintendo Japan confirmed in a tweet that “When Mario's physical strength goes to 0 or falls into a crime, 10 coins you have are reduced. However, ...! No matter how much you make a mistake there is no GAME OVER.” Yep, not since 2008’s Prince of Persia have I felt as secure of my inability to actually play a game involving platforming. Is this a good thing or bad thing? I’m expecting more hate-bandwagoning than positive reinforcement or constructive criticism, but hey, isn’t Nintendo simply immune to this sort of thing on the internet? Decide for yourself, but I, for one, am really looking forward to this game, because it looks fun as heck.