Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

This week in gaming: Destiny gets a little bit bigger with first expansion

Puzzles abound with Lara Croft and Phoenix Wright this week in gaming

Will Fulton
By

week gaming destiny gets little bit bigger first expansion phoenix wright
Image used with permission by copyright holder
After kicking off with Destiny‘s first major expansion, this week follows with plenty of puzzles involving platform jumping in an Egyptian temple, redirecting lasers, and dissecting a testimony. Some revamped classics join running franchises and a few original games for a well-rounded week of releases. What will you play?

Destiny: The Dark Below Expansion

PS3/PS4/X360/XB1 (December 9)
The first major content expansion to Bungie’s massively multiplayer shooter adds new gear, missions, a strike and a raid to keep Guardians busily shooting aliens in the holiday season. PlayStation gamers also get a few extra goodies as a timed exclusive until late 2015.

Recommended Videos

The action centers around the Hellmouth on the Moon, where the mysterious Eris Morn directs your attention to an ancient threat. The Dark Below is available on its own or as part of a Season Pass bundle.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris

PS4/Windows/XB1 (December 9)
This follow-up to Crystal Dynamics’ 2010 cooperative puzzler Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light again pulls back the camera from a typical Tomb Raider game to look down from a tactical third person perspective. Up to four players can collaboratively solve puzzles and fight monsters.

Clever environmental puzzles are the main focus, with frenetic gun fights against alligator-headed servants of the god ‘Set’ adding some spice. Puzzles scale in complexity with more players, encouraging both solo and co-op play.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

3DS (December 9)
The first three entries in Capcom’s adventure/visual novel series about rookie defense attorney Phoenix Wright have been compiled into one collection for 3DS. The re-release features a high definition visual overhaul and stereoscopic 3D support (to really make it pop when Phoenix does all that dramatic pointing at the heart of legal practice).

Gameplay consists of investigating cases to gather evidence and then taking it to court. By cross-examining witnesses and corroborating with the evidence you uncover inconsistent testimony and protect your client.

The Talos Principle

Linux/Mac/Windows (December 11)
Move blocks, re-direct lasers, and unlock a series of increasingly mind-bending rooms replete with multiple levels of secrets to uncover. This thoughtful, first-person puzzler is a change of pace for developer Croteam, who has previously created the Serious Sam series of shooters.

The dry humor of the comparable Portal has been replaced with philosophical ruminations. Its idea-rich story is just as full of rabbit holes and revelations as the puzzles that fill it out.

What else is coming:

  • Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (PS4/December 9, XB1/December 12) — Teenage Giana enters the Dream World to rescue her sister Maria, switching between “cute” and “punk” versions of herself in order to navigate her subconscious fears in this sequel to the 2011 Giana Sisters DS, which was a reimagining of 1987’s The Great Giana Sisters for Commodore 64.
  • Juju (PS3, Windows, X360/December 9) — Shaman panda Juju and his lizard sidekick Peyo must save Juju’s father and the world from an ancient evil in this colorful, family-friendly side-scrolling platformer.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic – Shadow of Revan Expansion (Mac, Windows/December 9) —  A new enemy threatens the galaxy in this expansion to BioWare’s Star Wars MMORPG. Both Sith and the Republic must work together to defeat Revan across a variety of new locations and missions.
  • Suikoden/Suikoden II (PS3, Vita/December 9) — This long-running JRPG series based loosely on a classical Chinese novel comes full circle with its first two entries made available to new audiences through the PlayStation Store.
  • Scrolls (Mac, Windows/December 11) — Minecraft developer Mojang followed its unexpected blockbuster with this collectible deckbuilding/tactical board game hybrid. Players collect the eponymous scrolls to summon units, structures, and spells against one another across a hexagon-laced battlefield.
Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
How to unlock fast travel in Another Crab’s Treasure
Kril with a coconut shell

Another Crab's Treasure is a fantastical soulslike set deep under the ocean where danger lurks around every corner. And like other games in the genre, it's often brutally difficult to overcome the various challenges you'll encounter. As such, you may find yourself wanting to backtrack for level grinding, to uncover new secrets, or to buy additional items in the game's main hub. However, you may notice early in the game that you haven't yet unlocked the ability to fast travel between the multitude of Moon Snail Shells (aka "bonfires") you've found. Here's how and when you'll unlock fast travel.
How to unlock fast travel
In the opening hours of the game, you may notice that you can access your skill tree, which will show a skill called Shelleportation. But you may be discouraged to see that you aren't able to apply any points to it yet. That's because the game doesn't open up this feature until you've advanced a few hours into the story.

To unlock fast travel, you'll need to work your way through the first few main areas of the game until you reach a boss called the Polluted Platoon Pathfinder. After beating this baddie, you'll soon find yourself teleporting to the Moon Snail's Domain. Here, you'll learn about the power of Umami, as well as unlock access to your skill tree.

Read more
Best gaming chair deals: Save on Corsair, Razer, and more
Razer - Iskur Gaming Chair.

Sitting down to play video games for hours and hours can be a lot of fun, but it can also be pretty bad for your health. Beyond just the lack of circulation, most modern chairs are not really made to have us sit in them for long periods, and so they don't offer things like lumbar support or breath to help keep us cool. Luckily, gaming chairs have come to the rescue, and if you're looking to at least help keep your body safe and healthy, going for a gaming chair can make a big difference. That said, gaming chairs can be quite expensive, which is why we've gone out and found some of our favorite gaming chair deals for you to pick from.
Homall Massage Gaming Chair -- $85, was $170

The Homall Massage Gaming Chair is affordable, but it will get the job done of keeping you comfortable while playing video games with its ergonomic design and high-quality PU leather materials. It's got head and waist pillows with a massage function that sets it apart from other cheap gaming chairs. The backrest can recline between 90 degrees and 180 degrees so you can find the perfect angle, and it also has a retractable footrest for an extra sitting position.

Read more
All Fallout games in order, chronologically and by release date
A woman and a dog leaving a vault in Fallout 4.

War never changes. The retrofuturistic apocalypse world of Fallout has graced fans with pretty regular releases since 1997, letting us explore the North American wasteland in the aftermath of a nuclear war in a variety of regions.

It can be a little hard to keep track of the series' timeline if you aren't listening to every holotape in every game and keeping your own log of events. On top of the best Fallout games, we now have to consider where the new Fallout TV show fits in the timeline. We aren't going to get into every timeline detail here (the series' lore is surprisingly deep and detailed) but we will let you know exactly what year every mainline titles takes place in and how you can play them in order.
Fallout games by release date

Read more