Due to their popularity as gifts — as well as society's stubborn tendency to regard them as toys instead of as a lucrative, influential mass medium — fall is peak video-game season. New releases hit shelves and online stores every week from September through Black Friday, each generally preceded with nearly a year’s worth of hype and marketing and preorder campaigns. Long before Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. were psyching each other out with superhero movie-release dates, video-game publishers were playing scheduling chicken with Call of Duty and Destiny launches. Fall games are sprawling affairs that are rarely able to communicate just what makes them distinctive in the brief trailers you may have seen. As such, allow us to present you with a guide that explains why this year’s crop of big games are popular, so you can remain conversant should the subject crop up at a fun mixer. Or if you want to play them yourself. 1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain ...

Developed by Gaijin Games ( BIT.TRIP series), Laserlife is coming to PlayStation 4 in North America on September 22 , with a release date in Europe TBA. Originally announced at IndieCade in 2010, Laserlife is an interactive biography about a dead astronaut floating through space who is discovered by future intelligences with no concept of humankind. Leaving the deep space explorers up to our imagination, they have technology that allows them to extract memory fragments from the astronaut to learn more about humanity. It’s then your job to “piece together the astronaut’s memories so that you can gain an understanding of what it is. And you do this with lasers. To the beat of the music.” Gaijin Co-Founder Alex Neuse adds: Our intention with Laserlife was to create a rhythm/music game that was accessible to everyone (If switched to Easy Difficulty, even my mom should be able to complete it). Laserlife is an experience that’s meant to be played through in one sitting. It’s an exp...

  Developed by independent studio Serellan, composed of industry veterans who previously worked on titles like Halo, Shadow of Mordor, Killzone, Mad Max and Need for Speed among others, Epsilon is a squad shooter, being developed using the Unreal Engine 4. The studio announced today that Epsilon is being readied for closed alpha testing in the next few weeks. rchie Paras   Developed by independent studio Serellan, composed of industry veterans who previously worked on titles like Halo, Shadow of Mordor, Killzone, Mad Max and Need for Speed among others, Epsilon is a squad shooter, being developed using the Unreal Engine 4. The studio announced today that Epsilon is being readied for closed alpha testing in the next few weeks. Christian Allen, CEO and Creative Director at Serellan, said: “Serellan is very excited to let our community get an early look at the game, before it is released on Steam Early Access. All of the Kickstarters of our previous title and a ...

Destiny 's mega-expansion / massive overhaul The Taken King is launching next week, and it's being promoted with a new live-action trailer. Three guardians land inside the titular king's giant floating fortress, the Dreadnaught, and they blast a few new enemies with hand cannons and flaming hammers before coming face to face with Oryx himself. Their hyperkinetic brawling is soundtracked by Led Zeppelin's " Black Dog ," which is being recycled from another recent trailer that  focused on gameplay . This isn't the first Destiny ad to use live-action, of course. Developer Bungie gave fans one of their earliest  looks at the Destiny universe with a live-action trailer in 2013, and the company released another (also featuring Led Zeppelin) before the vanilla game's release  this time last year . This one was directed by Joseph Kosinski ( Oblivion , TRON: Legacy ), and a truncated version is set to premiere tonight during the NFL's season-opening...

Bethesda has revealed new details for "Fallout 4" regarding a new game trailer, season passes, new DLCs, game mods and a series of early updates. A new game trailer for "Fallout 4" has been streamed online as gaming fans will have to learn what it takes to survive the harsh wastelands within the game. The trailer features a black and white presentation from Vault-Tech that teaches players how to adapt in "Fallout 4" using the things that makes them "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." when they start the game. Bethesda explained the real meaning behind the acronym "S.P.E.C.I.A.L.": Strength, Perception, Charisma, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. The trailer will focus on first on Strength as Bethesda urges players to "study" these materials carefully in order to survive "Fallout 4", Gamespot  reported. The new game trailer explained that gamers can carry certain amount of items in "Fallout 4" de...