February 2011 Archives

Bulletstorm has a story, but you won't be paying much attention to it or its testosterone-washed dialogue as you kick, slide, and shoot the naughty bits of your enemies - all in a drive to score points that can be used to upgrade your arsenal of destruction. It's a wonderland of smashing, bashing, and lashing that doesn't quite make it so much an FPS as a carnival sideshow gallery of kicking bags for adults.

Out today is a new trailer from Bethesda Softworks for the next major chapter in their Elder Scrolls series: Skyrim.

This time, it has gameplay that drops more than a few hints on what would-be heroes can look forward to when this open-world RPG arrives on November 11th. Players on the PC, Xbox 360, and the PS3 will all have a chance to save Tamriel, though if the previous games were any indication, they'll have to set some time aside for this one. Oblivion, its predecessor, literally had a hundred plus hours of gameplay to it especially when you factor in the add-ons.

Now the bigger question is: will my PC be able to actually run this thing?

"Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds" is a solid choice for gamers looking for a quick burst of superhero-inspired energy. Although many players, this reviewer included, have grown to appreciate the increasingly ambitious storytelling efforts made by the people behind such franchises as Fallout and Red Dead Redemption, Capcom's latest offering is a refreshing reminder that video games are still games.

The new game's premise could not be simpler: A lot of people like fighting games, and a lot of people like Marvel Comics. Progressing through the game's arcade mode eventually takes players to a battle to save the earth from Galactus, Marvel's planet-consuming threat with a big purple helmet. How you get there doesn't really make sense in terms of any of comic book continuity - assuming such a thing exists - considering that players can choose among sworn enemies for their three-character teams. But who cares? The point in MvC 3 isn't to tell a story, but to be a wacky fighting game.

MvC 3 succeeds as a game that's easy for just about any player to pick up and almost immediately execute ridiculous combos. I have not yet tried the simple mode, which makes special moves as simple as a single button push, but the basics are not difficult to learn. As far as control schemes go, there is little difference between the game's 36 characters. If you can make Street Fighter's Ryu perform his signature hadouken move, you can make Marvel's Deadpool unleash a duel-pistol attack.

The Pasadena Star News, with an assist from the Associated Press, reports a three judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will heard arguments in a case revolving around EA Games' use of college football players' likenesses in the publisher's NCAA Football franchise.

A central question the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena was asked to decide in the case filed by a former college quarterback Sam Keller is whether such video games are protected as "expressive art" under the First Amendment.

Keller is seeking compensation from Electronic Arts Inc. and the NCAA for the use of his image in the "NCAA Football" video game.

Attorneys for Electronic Arts Inc. and the NCAA argued Tuesday that video games are constitutionally protected as free speech - much like authors, filmmakers and songwriters use real people in their works. They are seeking a dismissal of the lawsuit.

Please click the link for the full story.

A new trailer was released for Dead Island, a survival-horror game that was announced nearly four years ago and then just as quickly disappeared into vaporware. It's being done by Polish developer, Techland, whom some might remember for the Western-styled FPS, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. It's still alive and it's actually expected out this year on the PC, PS3, and the Xbox 360. If Techland can make the game as fun as Bound in Blood, Capcom's Dead Rising might actually find itself with a little competition.

It's described as something of a 'Dead Rising' styled zombie masher with an RPG system in place to allow characters learn skills that can help them survive the outbreak. But it's unique in that the outbreak takes place at an island resort leaving the survivors with very little to fight back with except for their wits and whatever they can get their hands on. The smell of coconut oil might only make you seem more appetizing to the walking dead.

Still, there's really not much else to go on other than the bare basics. Oh, and there's the new, 18+ or older only trailer I mentioned. It's a remarkable piece of work even though it shows no gameplay. It's depressing and shocking at the same time and not because of the gore that spills from nearly every frame, so be warned when you click on this link to IGN to see it. Definitely not what your typical zombie trailer.

Nintendo has dispatched its final shipment of "Super Mario All-Stars," a Wii re-release of the Super NES package that was itself a reissue of four Mario games, upgraded from 8-bit to 16-bit graphics.

The package includes "Super Mario Bros.," the game's Japanese sequel (known in the United States as "The Lost Levels"), "Super Mario Bros. 2 (issued as the Mario-less "Doki Doki Panic" in Japan) and "Super Mario Bros. 3."

The package also includes a CD with music and sound effects from the Mario franchise and "Super Mario History," a 32-page booklet on Nintendo's signature series.

Felicia Day, whose online series "The Guild" provides further evidence that women play games*, will appear in "Dragon Age: Redemption," a six-part series based on Bioware's Dragon Age franchise.

From the release:

"I'm a huge Dragon Age fan, and I have been looking for a follow up project to 'The Guild' for quite some time," Day said. "I was thrilled when the opportunity to work with BioWare materialized. Dragon Age: Redemption allows me to tell a fantasy story in a new way, using a universe I really love. It has been a dream working together."

In Dragon Age: Redemption, Day stars as Tallis, an Elven assassin hired by the Qunari to capture a rogue mage intent on wreaking havoc throughout the world. In her quest to find this dangerous mage, Tallis is joined by other companions who are not always aligned in their beliefs and goals, but who band together to defeat their foe, in an attempt to restore peace and balance to this dark fantasy universe.

Day is scheduled to show a glimpse of the new series during the Feb. 16 broadcast of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." The series is set to debut in the summertime.

Bioware's and EA Games' "Dragon Age II" is scheduled for a March 8 release.

*I'm well aware that plenty of well adjusted women enjoy gaming, but what would the Internet be without foolish stereotypes?

XBox Live's "House Party" promotion is scheduled to begin Feb. 16 with the online release of "Hard Corps: Uprising." Four additional games are scheduled to be released on successive Wednesdays.

In this writer's opinion, the re-release of "Beyond Good & Evil" is the most interesting of the five House Party games, if only because I never had time to finish the game when it first came out in 2003. It's a shame too, because the title seems to have the reputation as being one of the best games of its generation that very few people played.

That said, the action RPG "Torchlight" has gathered some rave reviews and may also benefit from a chance to find a wider audience.

Here's the full House Party release schedule:

• Hard Corps: Uprising (Konami). The action 2D side-scroller in the "Contra" tradition is set for a Feb. 16 release. Price: 1,200 Microsoft Points.
• Bejeweled Blitz Live (PopCap Games). Why are casual games popular? Because the addictive ones are easy to figure out, quick to play and tempt players to keep coming back and beat their last score. American productivity may very well come to a halt when the XBox live version of this game, featuring a 16-player "Party" mode is released Feb 23. Price: 800 Microsoft Points.
• Beyond Good & Evil (Ubisoft). Originally released during the GameCube/PlayStation2/XBox generation, this is a futuristic action-adventure that puts playersin the role of a female photojournalist on a mission to expose a government conspiracy. There are also aliens. Somehow ,this game was not a hit, but it gets a second chance March 2. Price: 800 Microsoft Points.
• Torchlight (Runic/Microsoft Game Studios) An action RPG with more than 800,000 units sold, according to the people at Xbox. Game Informer reviewed the game as the "best Diablo clone in years" and praised its difficulty, character progression and "clever enemy design." The XBox Live release is scheduled for March 9. Price: 1,200 Microsoft Points.
• Full House Poker (Microsoft Game Studios, XBox/Krome Studios, Windows Phone 7) This is a Texas Hold 'Em game with multiple play modes for the console and Windows Phone. Release is set for March 16. Price: 800 Microsoft Points.
  

 

Developer Crytek joins a sad list that includes Electronic Arts and Valve to have a game of theirs leaked ahead of release. In this case, according to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it's a development build of Crysis 2 for the PC. The actual posting that had initially reported the leak is here on Facepunch. No, it doesn't lead to where you can get it. It's only a post from a reader that found it elsewhere and wanted to report it to others.

The actual game is scheduled to come out on March 22nd, but depending on how far along this particular build is, it could very well be close to what will be considered the "gold" copy that will go out for production. In other words, this is incredibly bad. To make things worse, sites including those above report that the build apparently has the game editor (for PCs), multiplayer, and the master key files for online authentication.

A post on the official Crysis forums by Crytek expresses their disappointment at the news and urges players to support the game when it comes out in March. With more than a few publishers and developers appearing to be looking for excuses to leave PC gaming in the dust, this leak can't be helping.

Here it is, the trailer for "X-Men: First Class", a reboot of the film franchise that may give Marvel to continue making money from mutant stories while giving X-fans a chance to forget they ever saw "X-Men: The Last Stand."

From the Hollywood Reporter comes this tidbit about writer, Melissa Rosenberg, taking over the screenwriting duties for the Highlander film reboot. You might know her best for her screenwriting work in bringing the Twilight series to the big screen. Yes, THAT Twilight with the twinkly vampires. It didn't take long on several forums for fans of the Highlander series to roll their eyes and start worrying that she would somehow write the character as an eighteen year old, conflicted immortal with girl problems.

But hold on. Rosenberg's obviously got talent to be able to bring enough of the Twilight films to the silver screen to appease its fanbase. She also has quite a bit of history with TV episodes from Dexter to a remake of the Magnificent Seven for the "small" screen. Still, in looking at her history, she's done a lot of drama-driven material that doesn't quite exactly mesh with the history-fantasy action adventure that Highlander is.

Well, time will tell whether this is a good move or not, but she wasn't the first to take a stab at rebooting Highlander as a review or two on a purported leaked version of a previous script have proven. Still, there's one nice thing that I can take away from all of this: we might be able to finally forget Highlander 2: The Quickening.

Hewlett-Packard will enter the tablet computer market with its new TouchPad product, CNET reports today.

Hewlett-Packard today took the wraps off its long-anticipated tablet, a 9.7-inch device it's calling the TouchPad, along with the bombshell that its WebOS is headed to PCs.

The TouchPad will run the company's WebOS, which it acquired along with Palm as part of a $1.2 billion deal in April. Among its list of features are: a 1024x768 pixel display, a weight of 1.5 pounds, 13mm thickness, front-facing cameras for video chat, 16GB or 32GB of built-in memory, support for Adobe's Flash, Beats by Dre speakers, and a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor.

Initially the TouchPad will be offered as a Wi-Fi only device, though HP said it plans to release a version with 3G/4G mobile connectivity later on down the line.

(Updated 2/10)

Activision/Blizzard will stop publishing the once-proud Guitar Hero franchise, a development that led to "RIP Guitar Hero" being one today's lead topics on Twitter.

The game publisher announced the news today while releasing financial disclosures for 2010. Activision/Blizzard will also cancel development of "True Crime: Hong Kong."

But Activision/Blizzard is not exactly hurting for business. The Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises continue to be big money makers. The company reported 2010 net revenues of $4.45 billion.

Santa Monica-based Activision/Blizzard reported a $418 year-end profit, although the firm experienced a $233 million loss during the Fourth Quarter.

The new figures were better than Activision/Blizzard's 2009 numbers. In 2009, the firm earned a $113 million profit for the year and endured a $286 million loss in the Fourth Quarter.

How did they get there? In addition to the numbers, Activision/Blizzard also bragged that the firm is the Number One game publisher in North America and Europe. Selling 3.3 million units of "World of Warcraft: Catclysm" since its December didn't hurt. Neither did selling more than $650 million worth of "Call of Duty: Black Ops" in the game's first five days of release.

Activision also reports that 27 million players have clocked more than 2 billion hours - more than 229,000 years - playing Call of Duty games. That figure only requires those players to play an average of about 74 hours.

Gaming website IGN took part in Activision's conference call and noted that the publisher now views the games business as "blockbuster or bust." Within that context, IGN is able to report that last year's "Transformers: War for Cybertron" was a sales dud for Activision.

Despite positive reviews, the Transformers title missed out on being on of the industry's Top Ten selling games when it was released in June, IGN reported at the time.

Despite the demise of Guitar Hero, the game was still featured prominently on Activision/Blizzard's corporate homepage Wednesday. Loading the homepage was more likely to produce an image of digital Slash or another rock star than one of Call of Duty's many soldiers.

But Call of Duty is the future of Activision. The Los Angeles Times reports company's plans include "BeachHead," an online service for the Call of Duty franchise. Activision released few details on what exactly BeachHead will be.

The Times' report observes that the end of Guitar Hero is a major factor in the ending of some 500 employees' jobs and Activision/Blizzard's business reflecting the "hit-driven nature of the video-game industry in which consumers flitter from one fad to another."

Thus the LAT reports that investors are less excited about Call of Duty than the franchises fans:

Activision said it expected 2011 revenue to hit $3.95 billion, substantially less than its 2010 revenue of $4.45 billion. The forecast came in lower than most Wall Street analysts had been expecting, triggering an 8% slide in the company's stock price.

Activision's shares were also depressed by investor concern over the concentration of the company's revenue in just two franchises, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, said John Taylor, an analyst with Arcadia Investment Corp. in Portland, Ore.

Nonetheless It was not so long ago when Guitar Hero was practically everywhere, especially displays in stores like Best Buy or the now vanished Circuit City, where customers would take a break from shopping to pretend to be on stage somewhere. It's now easy to find Guitar Hero and rival Rock Band titles in used bins at low, low prices.

I have no idea if Call of Duty will ever mirror Guitar Hero's rise and fall or remain a perennial big seller like EA's Madden NFL series. What I do know is that many real musicians won't weep for Guitar Hero.





 

That's not really a surprise given Fox's record with gamers in terms of misleading their audience with self-styled media pundits and so-called experts who obliquely ignore the ratings on the actual product or who have never played the game in the first place. Facts? What facts?

It wasn't that long ago that Mass Effect went through the same thing on Fox. In the analysis that followed, the 'expert' that Fox had called to the floor - Cooper Lawrence - who made Mass Effect out to be promoting pornography was lambasted by those that had actually played the game. See, she didn't play it - but felt in her expert opinion that it was primarily what the game was about and ran with it. It's as if someone had blamed the film, Pirates of the Caribbean, for promoting Somali piracy without even seeing the movie.

She actually apologized, even though Fox never did. But that hasn't stopped Fox from finding experts that now blame games for the increase in rape statistics across the nation without any real statistics to back up that correlation. Once again, the audience is left to take the word of these 'experts' at face value without so much as hard evidence.

Fox went on to draw in Bulletstorm as the perfect example of why the youth of America are falling by the wayside. Now, Bulletstom IS a violent game. That's why it's rated M, for Mature, meaning that it should only be played by adults 18 and over. Not by a nine year old that Fox has been quoted in saying will be playing games just like it.

Short of handling game sales like the TSA handles airports, you're still going to see parents buy kids the games they want because they either don't care or don't know any better. In my time in retail, I've seen parents do this - we deny the kid the sale, then he/she brings in their grumpy parent to wonder why we did that and use their credit card to get the game anyway. It happens.

EA has hit back with a statement defending Bulletstorm and likening it to similar fare such as Sin City or Kill Bill which is fine since both of those films are rated appropriately and are clearly intended for older audiences. Games for adults should be treated in the same way, but according to Fox, they're not. Still, I'm not expecting Fox to issue an apology for this, either, or for any of their experts to recant what they've said. After all, they've got their fifteen minutes of fame.

Step right up, get your EA Games for $.99 for your iPhone, Ipod touch and the iPad. In time for Valentines Day, EA Games announced that they'll drop the price of nearly 30 games games for 48 hours, starting on February 7. Now, I know it's the 8th but hey, you've got a 10 hours from the time this goes up. So.....hurry, hurry, hurry!!!

Game titles are listed after the jump.

If ridiculousness is a virtue, the designers behind "Marvel vs. Capcom 3" are video game saints.

The game, its full title is "Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds" appears to be based on the belief that wackier is better. Capcom's "Super Street Fighter IV" wasn't exactly an exercise in subtlety, but to play MvC3 is to play an electronic equivalent of a caffeine rush.

Remember Jolt Cola? This game is like a six-pack of the stuff, so this writer is going to crack open an imaginary bottle and get to work.

Details after the jump:

"Dead Money," the first DLC release for "Fallout: New Vegas" is scheduled to be released PC and PlayStation 3 on Feb. 22, Bethesda Softworks announced.


XBox 360 players got first crack at Dead Money way back on Dec. 22. Bethesda reports that they will release three additional New Vegas expansions within the next few months with simultaneous release dates for all three platforms.

Here's one for all the video baseball fans out there. The new "Yankee Killer" trailer for "MLB 11: The Show" lets a digital version of Minnesota Twins star Joe Mauer step up to the plate against the New York Yankee's C.C. Sabathia.

In this writer's opinion, any scenario in which the Yankees lose is a good one.

The game is set for a March release.

He's gone, really, according to gaming blog Andriasang, because of the rules that CERO has in place for every game. CERO is the Japanese equivalent of the ESRB, the ratings board over here in the States, though their requirements are a bit different from ours. For example, two of the rules they have against "scenes deemed malicious to an existing person/country" have apparently replaced North Korea with "A certain country in the North" and Kim Jong-il with "Northern Leader".

If you're not sure what Homefront is, it's THQ's new shooter that's headed to retail in March. It features the somewhat sketchy premise of North Korea's successful unification of the peninsula and its preparation in the years since for war, culminating in half of the United States falling for a surprise invasion. The story puts players in the shoes of a grassroots resistance movement in occupied America as they take up the fight. With the tensions between Japan and North Korea, it's probably not too hard to understand why this might be a somewhat sensitive topic.

It's also not the first time a game coming in from the States has had to go through the wringer in order to enter certain markets. Australia's somewhat draconian rules have made headlines over the years for their handling of titles such as Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 which only entered the country via a German version that was already edited for content. Typing in "video games banned" in Google brings up "video games banned in australia" as an auto-complete term.

Even the United States has its own funny rules on censorship. One example that jumps out is how the NES' port of Bionic Commando originally pit the player against Nazis complete with Hitler at the end - until it was whitewashed when it came over here. The Japanese fought a vast, neo-Nazi empire while we got - Badds and Master D. Now, more than twenty years later, it sounds as if they're getting the Bionic Commando treatment. Of course, the difference is that one game was based on history and sci-fi; the other more on speculation on current events.

Things have somewhat relaxed a bit since then, even for Nintendo, and I'm also sure the Japanese audiences looking at the game know exactly who Homefront's story is really pointing to. THQ is also apparently okay with it leaving it to Spike in Japan to handle the distribution there. As long as the gameplay itself proves to be just as interesting, a relatively small change like this shouldn't keep Japan's gamers from finding the same amount of fun that other gamers elsewhere are hoping to get from Homefront.

By Michael Sorba
Contributor

The original "Dead Space" breathed new life into the survival horror genre when the game hit consoles in 2008, and its briskly-paced sequel sacrifices none of the terrifying, unsettling atmosphere that made the original so special.

The developers at Visceral Games force the player to endure a constant struggle that is the  essence of survival horror. Playing "Dead Space 2," I felt the same feelings I did while playing the first Resident Evil titles on the Playstation 1.

Playing "Dead Space 2" is a stressful experience. It's not for the faint of heart and will try one's patience, but with Dead Space 2, Visceral Games now holds title to the finest survival horror franchise in gaming.

Demon's Souls on the PS3 was a surprise hit to Atlus, who imported and localized the game for the States, and to Japanese developer, From Software.

It was tough, unforgiving, harsh in its execution of the challenges it threw at players, but rewarding to those that took the time to learn its systems and eventually take the fight back to the enemy. It was an action RPG that didn't handhold you as much as it killed you - though dying was a big part of the gameplay anyway.

Now we have Dark Souls on its way - which is basically Demon's Souls with a few tweaks, though it's really a "spiritual successor". Sony owns the name to Demon's Souls, and with Namco Bandai publishing this one instead, well, you know how things go. But even the creators are distancing this game from Demon's Souls and it sounds as if they have plenty of reasons to. New story, tweaked mechanics, a "base" type approach to advancing through each area, and tougher difficulty.

Wait, tougher? That's what Hidetaka Miyazaki, director for the game, has come out to confirm in an interview on Sony's blog. I loved the first game and the tougher challenge has piqued my curiosity to see just how it plays out. Looking at this trailer, it certainly isn't pulling any punches. Not that fans would want it to.

Dark Souls is expected to humble dungeon crawlers sometime this year.

According to Battlefield's official blog, those bits are officially in for EA's Battlefield 3. Yeah, I know MAG can support 256 players in their game, but there's always something special about a Battlefield title that makes having 64 players on the field even more exciting.

Unfortunately, that's only if you have a PC. Still, I remember when Battlefield 1942 on the PC had modded servers allowing for up to 64 players. The default was 32, but with a few tweaks - and enough horsepower - modders found ways around that limitation.

Even without 64 players on consoles, players on each platform (Xbox 360, PS3, and PCs) will still get jets and the ability to actually go prone which was something of a criticism with the previous Bad Company games when it was taken out. Sneaky players will finally get something new to crow about when they shoot the ankles out from beneath their enemies.

There's no firm date yet aside from this Fall setting it up to be another painful pounding on everyone's wallets all over again.

Here are some photos from Capcom's "Fight Club" event Thursday night at Club 740 in downtown Los Angeles.

Fans had a chance to try out Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and "Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. I'll have a more detailed write-up as soon as I can take care of my non-polygon related duties for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and The Sun.

It wouldn't be a Capcom party without cosplay. "Chun-Li," "X-23" and "Dark Phoenix" pose for the cameras.

More after the jump ...

RPG fans awaiting Dragon Age II will be able to get their hands on the title's demo on Feb. 22, EA Games announced Thursday.

The demo will give players a chance to sample Dragon Age II's prologue, and those who complete the demo will get a chance to wield Hayder's Razor, "an ancient dwarven blade which increases health, mana, and combat abilities" in the main game.

Dragon Age II is set for a March 8 release in North America for PC, PS3 and XBox 360.

Here ya go, Bat-fans, four new screenshots from "Batman: Arkham City" the sequel to 2009's popular brawler, "Batman: Arkham Asylum."


The next three after the jump ...

By Brittany Vincent
Contributor

Time constraints and an avalanche of games falling from my enormous backlog kept me out of the MMO fold for quite some time, but one title finally struck my fancy enough to bring my inner supervillain out of hiding: DC Universe Online.

I'd avoided MMOs for years, fearing the cost of addiction rearing its ugly head. But it's 2011. It's a new year, a fresh start, and I'm rockin' shiny new spandex while l smear the good guys all over the pavement. It's been about a month into my masquerading as a costumed supervillain, and I'm here to report back.

The verdict? DC Universe Online isn't a game-changer, but it's overall a decent option to get casual players into test-running an MMO, especially for gamers like me who have all but abandoned the genre. I can't say it runs particularly well for a console iteration, like say Final Fantasy XI, a perennial favorite for me when the mood strikes for grinding, but it certainly has its moments.

XBox Live players can buy five new multiplayer maps for "Call of Duty: Black Ops" (Activision, Treyarch) as of today's release of the new "First Strike" DLC.

CoD fans who actually played Black Ops' well-made, entertaining and insanely unrealistic* single-player campaign will remember most the game's action taking place in Cold War scenarios such as the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and Laos. 

The new map pack continues the Free World vs. Commies theme with a map featuring fighting on both sides of the Berlin Wall. The remaining four maps are "Stadium," the Antarctic setting of "Discovery," the high-rise cityscape of "Kowloon" and "Ascension," which is a new setting for players to shoot at zombie communists and monkeys.



"First Strike" retails for 1200 Microsoft Points on XBox Live.

*Had anything like half the missions in this game actually happened, World War III would have happened. (And let's not talk about that plot twist.)