Take an insanely popular game from the PC and place it on the Xbox 360 where many people can take advantage of the console’s easy to access system and guess what that creates? Well it creates at least 3 million sales since Minecraft was released on the XBLA.
Notch, creator of Minecraft and owner of Mojang, revealed on his Twitter today stating that he has been told that “Minecraft for XBLA passed three million sales today!” Hopefully the large influx of cash from these sales will translate into faster support for the XBLA version of the game and more features being implemented over the coming months.
Now while we have known for quite some time that North American Vita owners will have a chance to pick up Street Fighter X Tekken for their languishing handheld on October 23rd but those in Europe have been biting their fingernails while they wait for a chance to play a game that has been out on other consoles for a half a year at this point.
Well there is no reason to keep worrying as it turns out Europeans will be getting Street Fighter X Tekken on the Vita on October 19th, four days before their North American counterparts. It is worth noting that Street Fighter X Tekken on the Vita contains a number of bonuses as well as all DLC released for the PS3 version of the game.
Konami and PlatinumGames have released some new gameplay footage from their upcoming Metal Gear Rising Revengeance game. The footage includes the first few minutes of the E3 demo that was on display at this years Electronic Entertainment Expo over in LA.
In the trailer, fans will be able to see some of the unique combat systems being utilised within Metal Gear Rising Revengeance as well as some other amazing gameplay details. For people who have yet to hear about this game, it will be featuring the character Raiden, who is a half-cyborg Ninja with some amazingly devastating combat prowess.
The game is joint-developed by Kojima Productions and PlatinumGames; and is set to be released early 2013. Be sure to check out the trailer, embedded below for more details.
Well, everyone it looks like the mushrooms will have to wait. Nintendo has announced that if you purchase New Super Mario Bros. 2 from the eshop, you will get some extra coins to use on Club Nintedno. You will get a total of one-hundred extra coins if you make your purchase from the eshop but they have also said if you do not purchase the game from the eshop you can still get fifty coins for rewards purchases- which is still a good deal.
In order to get the game though the eShop you must make sure you have a 3DS account that is connected with Club Nintendo. Nintendo are launching both versions at the same time (August 18th), and those extra coins make for a great incentive to go digital.
Studio:Gameloft Publisher:Gameloft Platform: iPhone (reviewed), iPad, Android Release Date:July 20, 2012 Price: $6.99 Available Here
Overview
Christopher Nolan has created the greatest Superhero movie trilogy ever – deny that and your officially an idiot as far as I’m concerned. So naturally expectations are unfairly high for any developer who even attempts to grab the licensing and make a game inspired by the final film. Thankfully however developer Gameloft has decided to rise up to the challenge and have brought along their always impressive high production efforts to the table, giving The Dark Knight Rises a fighting chance. While it may not be as entertaining as their last movie tie-in, The Amazing Spider-Man, TDKR is still a pretty enjoyable game at it’s core…if you just ignore a few bugs and tolerate a lot of repetitiveness.
Gameplay
On paper The Dark Knight Rises sounds perfect: throw Batman into an open world environment to explore Gotham, set in Christopher Nolan’s universe, include an Arkham City-inspired combat system and break up the gameplay with vehicle based missions, but the execution of such is a little less exciting. See the main problem about putting Batman in a sandbox environment is that travelling around it gets pretty boring. Sure you can glide short distances and use the grappling hook to get up buildings, but at the end of the day you end up mostly walking around from place to place. Yes it does break up combat, but it does so in a really boring fashion. Unlike Superman who can fly or Spider-Man who does acrobatic swinging, Batman is a slow stalker in the shadows so getting from point A to point B isn’t exactly mind blowing. Although side-missions are present to give the city some spirit and make you feel like a hero saving those in need. In fact, it can be argued that TDKR makes more of an effort here than what Gameloft did with The Amazing Spider-Man. However these missions still fall short by getting repetitive. Missions vary from ‘save or disarm this’ to ‘beat up these bad guys’ to ‘follow this truck, then save or disarm this’. This could be forgiven, but the story’s missions are 100% exactly the same, just with cut scenes. The only difference ever is when you need to be stealthy and do so quietly, which is hell because the AI is so stupid (or intelligent?) that it feels more like luck than skill 90% of the time.
The problems keep on coming. Like many sandbox titles, TDKR comes with a ton of bugs. What’s odd though is Gameloft have worked on countless titles of this genre in the past (Gangstar: Crime City, Gangstar: West Coast Hustle, Backstab, The Amazing Spider-Man, to name a few) and usually do a pretty good job of polishing things up and making sure this isn’t an issue. But in TDKR characters get stuck in objects, soundbites interrupt each other, the game crashes, sometimes mission objectives don’t show up on the map until you restart….long story short there’s a couple of bugs and problems here and there. None of these are game-breaking bugs, you can still enjoy the game but after a while they do get irritating. Finally, vehicle missions which I ultimately expected to be bright highlights of the game were actually some of the worst aspects. Whether if it’s The Bat or The Bat-Pod, controls are awkward, clumsy and a chore to use. Truly disappointing.
Don’t get it twisted – The Dark Knight Rises is still at it’s core, a good game. Combat for one is really enjoyable and authentic to Christian Bale’s movie performance, focusing on a brutal range of head butts and elbows that really leave an impact.While it can get repetitive after a while, it is fun to do. Advancing throughout the storyline is also enjoyable as while the missions may be repetitive, the execution in the presentation of these stages are nice enough to distract you for the most part. Furthermore, light RPG elements are present for upgrading and such which adds to a sense of progression. While nothing here is spectacular, it’s enough to keep you entertained for a bit, and if your a true Batman fan like myself, enough fan service to last you throughout the duration of the entire game.
Graphics/Audio
Ah yes. This is where the game truly shines. Graphics and presentation is consistently outstanding throughout The Dark Knight Rises. Character models look like the actors they are based on, textures are detailed, explosions look beautiful and the themes style does the Nolan trilogy justice. Audio is just as impressive. While the film’s cast is not present in this game, very similar and high quality voice actors have stepped up instead. Dare I say it, this may have the best voice acting I’ve ever heard in a mobile game, ever! Music is also faithful to the film franchise and sets the tone perfectly. In fact whenever the game does fall short, the presentation, graphics and audio make up for it by captivating you within the experience. This is what pushes the player on to keep playing and is almost enough to make up for the games bugs and repetitive gameplay. Almost.
Overall
The Dark Knight Rises film from Christopher Nolan is easily one of the greatest superhero films ever made, but the mobile game leans towards the little more average side of things. The game is made on a solid foundation – great combat system, beautiful graphics, awesome audio and presentation, a wonderful city to explore, light RPG elements and an ok story as well, but bugs, disappointing vehicle missions and wost of all repetitive gameplay ultimately stop The Dark Knight from Rising. However, if your a big Batman fan like myself or want a decent sandbox game or beat em up, The Dark Knight Rises is worth checking out.
It has been reported that 12 people have died and over 50 have been injured at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Denver, Colorado.
The shooting happened about thirty minutes into the film when a fight scene began to take place. The shooter stood up in the middle of the theater and pulled out a few cans of tear gas and began to cause carnage and panic in the theater and the weapons the shooter had used were a pistol and a rifle. He was able to let loose around seventy to eighty shots and then load another clip into each and continued to fire. Right now, it is not known why the killer decided to do this but, many believe that he did this for revenge.
This is a very serious incident due to another shooting happening nearby in the past like the Columbine shooting. The people who died are from the age of six to thirty-one and a baby at the age of three months was injured but, he is doing all right. Whether or not this is going to affect security at theaters across the country is still unknown but everyone be on your guard.
It’s been recently reported that the PS3 exclusive, Final Fantasy Versus XIII by Square Enix will no longer be happening. It seems that the company behind the game didn’t want to announce the cancellation of the game but, they’d rather let it fade away due to their rising stock concerns. There is much reason to believe this due to the game being announced in 2006 alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0, and since then we have seen the release of both of these game and the sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2. Also, this is easily believable due to the fact the game hasn’t been at any conventions for some time now.
The only upside to this would be that a lot of the developing team working on the game has moved on and have begun working on Final Fantasy XV. Unless Square Enix has something different to say about the matter, consider the game canceled.
Sherlock Holmes is on a trail of clues in the new screenshots from Focus Home Interactive for upcoming game The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is the ultimate adventure game character with his astounding leaps of logic and the collection of screenshots show off the title character investigating items and questioning people. So what has the master sleuth figured out? Well, from the make of the key above maybe Sherlock will start looking for an antique jewlery box to fit its appropriate time period and aesthetic! Or just a gold lock, cause you know its gold.
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is setting up to be released for XBox 360, PS3, and PC in September of this year and then all the mystery’s will be revealed. Until then maybe take a good look at the screenshots below and come up with your own ideas of what they could lead to, then leave a comment on your own leaps of logic and the trails they could lead to.
Crust Developer: Nordic Mobile Labs Publisher: Nordic Mobile Labs Platform: iPad(reviewed)/iPhone/Android Release: Price: $2.99 – Available Here [Lite Version Available Here]
Overview
Remember cave flyers? Popular in the 1990’s cave flyers were usually based on a single screen, with two control inputs. Players battled it out, flying through a cave (hence the name, right?) and hopefully had some good old arcade-style fun. Regardless if you remember them, Finnish game company, Nordic Mobile Labs, remembers them. Their first title for iOS and Android, Crust, is a homage to the cave flyers of the past, hopefully introducing some new comers to the genre, and winning back some old fans at the same time.
Gameplay
The basic mechanics of Crust are simple, fly around a cave in a space ship and avoid or destroy enemy ships. The interface is pretty straightforward, weapons on the right, virtual joystick on the left. I won’t lie to you dear reader, Crust is a difficult game. The story mode starts off easy (even easier if you decide to play the practice round before hand). There is a basic tutorial that explains how items like the tractor beam work, and what power-ups do what. Then you are introduced to enemies. Then, you are introduced to way too many enemies. There are nine levels across the game, each getting more and more difficult. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have a challenge, my point is just that the learning curve is steep, especially for an iOS game.
Story mode is not the only type of gameplay. There are also some multiplayer modes, which is always fun to have a go at when the AI become too taxing to tackle. As I said, there is also a practice mode so you can explore the maps that you’ll encounter in story mode at your own pace. Within each mode of gameplay, there are three ships to pick from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, a recon ship, a fighter, and a tank. Stats for each are based on weapons, shields, bonus and cool down.
Multiplayer
There are two options for multiplayer gamelay with Crust. The first of which, I am sure many people are familiar with, is online multiplayer. There are three modes to play across multiple servers, deathmatch, team deathmatch and bombing run. Don’t feel like getting your butt kicked, or there isn’t anyone else on the servers? Well don’t worry, Crust has you covered. Just like the cave flyer’s of old, there is a co-operative option, where two players can get their hands on the one device, and pilot two ships through story mode or battle in deathmatch. Having that other player certain does help on some of those difficult levels. The only problem is trying to play co-op on an iPhone can be a little tricky. The screen is so tiny, that trying to both look for tiny enemies within the cave becomes tricky. The iPad however, now there is some fun. Sitting across from each other at a café, next to each other on a plane or bus, hell, even in a lecture theatre with the volume off. The co-op mode for Crust was a serious win for me, although I am yet to play in any of those places, I now have the option.
Visuals and Audio
Crust keeps with the visual style of classic cave fighters. The design is very minimalistic, focusing instead of the construction of a navigable labyrinth rather than a scenic world. But it works. However, Nordic Mobile Labs have, unlike a lot of iOS games, decided to not use retro pixels. They take the design principles of 1990’s game design, and update it to take full advantage of both the iPhone and the iPad’s retina display. There has been obvious attention given to creating a unique series of maps, each different from the last, to keep the player engaged. The audio follows a similar fashion, of updated retro-aesthetic. The muffled radio signals, the hyperbolic explosions – this is definitely a game you will want to play with the volume on.
Overall
Crust is a difficult game. Getting blown up, and perhaps even the act of navigating map after map may become tiresome. Of course, there are always multiplayer modes, if that is your sort of thing. Despite the gameplay being slightly repetitive, it is an ambitious effort from newcomer iOS developers Nordic Mobile Labs. The game is well designed, and I really enjoy the co-operative element using split screens. If you don’t think it’s worth the small price of $2.99, then at least download the Lite version, Crust is surely worth a moment of your time.
