LEGO Lord of the Rings has made a pit stop on the way to Mordor not mentioned in the books or movies, San Diego Comic-Con. Attendees are able to check out the game at the Warner Bros booth, but those not able to go are still able to at least see some of the screenshots released just for the Con. Players can check out the screenshots showing off plenty of shots of the Fellowship in the gallery below.
LEGO Lord of the Rings follows the tradition of LEGO games retelling movies with LEGO characters, but just as LEGO Batman 2 had real voice acting, trailers have shown off LEGO Lord of the Rings featuring the same. So, look forward to joining Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf as they band together to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.
LEGO Lord of the Rings is set to release fall of this year on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, PS Vita, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3Ds, and PC.
Another day in the gaming world of PCs, another tower defence game. Yes, the ever popular genre initiated mainly through Warcraft III mods, tower defence, has exploded into a fad that there’s just a bit too much of in the lives of us all, whether it’s on iPhone, PC, or even XBLA. Beware Planet Earth! seeks to charm its way into the hearts and minds of the cynical masses with a combination of the best features and mechanics to have hit the tower defence scene over the past decade and the never-ending charm of cartoon enemies. Is this an invasion worth resisting, or was the battle lost before it even began?
Gameplay
Aliens are invading!! Yes, they’re back, and they’re attacking the rural countryside. Naturally, to deprive our great countries of sustenance, they’re going after our cows, and it’s up to you and a cowardly mechanic to stop them.
Beware Planet Earth! operates in much the same way as many traditional tower defence games: enemies spawn at a given location and follow a marked path to their destination, you must build towers to kill them before they get there. Where the game differs is that when the aliens get to the cow pen where their prey awaits they have to carry them back to their starting location.
Beware Planet Earth! also riffs several features rather shamelessly from Popcap’s Plants vs. Zombies. You’ll put down machines that generate cogs that you must click to collect and spend (much like the sunflowers in its zombie defence inspiration), you’ll have a wide arsenal of towers but be limited as to how many you can use per level, and there’s a crazy sidekick mechanic-guy who hides in an outhouse, providing you with upgrades and new towers, while also being the main way information about an upcoming challenge is presented to you.
The variety of towers veterans have come to expect are all present and accounted for here: fridges will slow down opponents, bombs will instantly kill a cluster of aliens, and so on. The enemy types are where the game actually gets quite creative. There’s your typical fast and weak enemy type and there’s your slow but strong alien variety, but there’s also spy aliens that you have to actively “undisguise” so that your towers will shoot them, and scientist aliens who provide a forcefield to all those around them. The only way to counteract those enemies is to shoot at them with a ray gun that you acquire early on; the kicker is that if you spam the ability, the gun will overheat and you’ll have to wait for it to cooldown before you can use it again.
Despite the creativity put into the enemy types, Beware Planet Earth! quickly becomes repetitive. This isn’t due to a lack of new things to do, but rather the fact that despite the new challenges the game remains ridiculously easy. I very rarely had an alien even get to the cowpen, much less carry one of my bovine companions back to the starting point. That the aliens have to return the cows to the start was an odd decision in the first place, but it single-handedly manages to drag the game down from something that was potentially great.
Audio & Visual
Visually, the game looks very good. Its cartoon style once again seeks to emulate that of Plants vs. Zombies, and for the most part it succeeds. Your machines are all sentient and have eyeballs (god knows why), and the enemy aliens look like they’d belong on a cutesy for-two-year-olds horror toon. That said it does feel like there is something missing. Maybe it’s the lack of audio on the aliens (the groans on the zombies in PvZ as they fell to your plants always let you know you were doing well), or maybe it’s the fact that the aliens aren’t really well animated: they just kind of glide along the path with very little other than the glass on their helmets cracking to show you that they’re taking damage.
The audio fares better; not that it’s in any way spectacular, but it does the job well and the cheery music that plays when you finish a level (complete with a head-bobbing, winking cow) is definitely a little sound-enhanced pat on the back. The plops and clacks of your various machines attacking the aliens lack a little oompf, but you’ll probably stop noticing when your towers join together in a crescendo of pleepclackploop as a wave of aliens tries to get by.
Overall
Beware Planet Earth! is a game that on paper should be excellent. It features the best compilation of tower defence mechanics from the TD hits of the last ten years, but even though it ticks all the boxes on the list, a couple of missteps hold it back from true greatness. The ease with which waves of aliens are dispatched can make the game a droll affair, more about watching than playing. On top of that, there’s just a little polish missing in the overall presentation of the game. What should be a great tower defence game with a lot of character is bogged down by those flaws, making Beware Planet Earth a good game that will keep you interested, but not an amazing one that you’ll be talking about a couple of months from now.
Welcome to the ninth episode of CC Powerslam, Capsule Computers Wrestling Podcast! In our ninth episode, the CC Crew discuss their predictions of WWE’s Money in the Bank PPV.
Cast: Luke Halliday, Philip Federico, David Christison, Dustin Spencer and Evan Brander-Jones
Send all your wrestling questions, suggestions, predictions and feedback to [email protected]
Money in the Bank PPV Card:
World Heavyweight Championship
– Sheamus (c) vs. Alberto Del Rio
WWE Championship Match – Special Guest Referee: AJ
– CM Punk (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank Match
– Christian vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Santino Marella vs. Damien Sandow vs. Sin Cara vs. Tensai vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Dolph Ziggler
WWE Championship Money in the Bank Match – John Cena vs. Big Show vs. Kane vs. Chris Jericho Feedback:
Send an email to [email protected] and let us know what you think of the podcast or what you’d like to hear or any suggestions you might have.
Nippon Ichi’s first announced 20th anniversary title, Special Reporting Division, has its first trailer up and running. It starts off in the newsroom of Tokuhou with an anchorwoman possessing a rather large surprise. The trailer then enters montage mode, showing off the cast of this new adventure game. No gameplay is shown, however. Nippon Ichi may be withholding gameplay details for the Tokyo Game Show some two months time.
Of course, some of the story is revealed. It is suggested that a UFO is involved, which could mean that it could be an alien themed story. The name of the title may also suggest that. The game will be hitting the Playstation Vita, but it has no release date. The trailer is below for your enjoyment.
After some details on Kamisama to Unmei Kakumei Paradox (Kamipara for short, roughly translated as “Gods and the Fate Revolution Paradox”) were revealed in the latest Dengeki Playstation, the official site of the next Team Disgaea RPG has opened, albeit it is still in teaser mode. Along with the teaser site, a teaser trailer for the game was also released. It depicts several characters of the game, including the angel and the young boy who becomes a god and grants people wishes.
In an interesting discovery, however, the platform of the game may have been unintentionally revealed, despite a platform never been named by NIS. Scanning the source of the page,the word Vita pops up, suggesting that this could be the second Vita game coming from NIS, after Special Reporting Division. The screen capture, posted on Andriasang, can be seen below:
The full opening of the site is scheduled for July 19. In the meantime, you can check out the teaser trailer below. The game has no release time period at the moment, but it may be revealed next week. A platform should also be announced at the same time.
Be excited Might & Magic fans, Ubisoft have released a new trailer for Heroes of Might & Magic VI Pirates of the Savage Seas. The trailer shows off the features of the game as well as some little things that only the true Might & Magic fans would pick up on.
The game is available for PC and can be downloaded now on the online Ubisoft store called Ubishop here. You can also check out the official website of Heroes of Might & Magic VI Pirates of the Savage Seas for more information on the game here.
Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think of Heroes of Might & Magic VI Pirates of the Savage Seas in the comments section.
Legend of Heroes: Zero no Keisei Evolution, the Playstation Vita version of Legend of Heroes: Zero no Keisei, has a final release date, according to Japanese store Chara-ani. The store lists an October 18 release date as the final release date. There will be three versions of the game available. In stores Japan-wide, there will be both standard and limited editions available. Standard editions will be priced at ¥6,090, while limited editions will be priced at ¥9,800. A downloadable version will also be available for ¥5,040.
The limited edition of the game will include “a Nendoroid Puchi figure, a carrying pouch, a cleaning cloth, a soundtrack and an original drama CD”. Legend of Heroes: Zero no Keisei Evolution will feature full voice acting, higher resolution graphics and mini-games utilising the Vita’s unique features. Below are some screenshots released from the announcement, including the boxart and the limited edition.
Lovers of hip hop, it’s time to put those hands in the air as Ubisoft will be bringing The Hip Hop Dance Experience to your nearest Wii or Xbox 360 with Kinect support. Developed by iNiS, a music game developer, The Hip Hop Dance Experience will feature over 750 hip hop dance moves and 40 hip hop tracks from well-known hip hop artists such as Chris Brown, Flo Rida, Lil Wayne and Pitbull.For those who prefer old-school hip hop, artists such as Run DMC and Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock will also be featured
Well-renowned choreographers Laurieann Gibson, Dave Scott and Kid David will inject their own routines for the player to emulate at home. Of course, everyone can host a party with The Hip Hop Dance Experience, with multiplayer modes to show off your dance moves to your friends. Customise your avatar and create the ultimate hip hop dancer. The Hip Hop Dance Experience will be released worldwide in November. Check out the first trailer and a behind the scenes look below.
Just Dance 4’s tracklist is building, with two more tracks revealed by Ubisoft. The new tracks are “Love You Like A Love Song” by Selena Gomez and The Scene, and “The Final Countdown” by Europe.
This makes the latest tracklist for the game so far look like this:
• Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen
• Disturbia – Rihanna
• Good Feeling – Flo Rida
• Love You Like A Love Song – Selena Gomez and The Scene
• Maneater – Nelly Furtado
• Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera
• Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley
• Rock Lobster– The B-52’s
• So What – P!nk
• Super Bass – Nicki Minaj
• The Final Countdown – Europe
• You’re The First, The Last, My Everything – Barry White
• What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction
• Wild Wild West – Will Smith
Just Dance 4 will be released on October 2, 2012 on the Wii, Xbox 360 Kinect and PS Move for PlayStation 3. The game also will be released on the Wii U system during the console’s launch window.
Prepare to be taken over the top with Codemasters Racing’s latest announcement. F1 Race Stars transforms the technical, life-like world of Formula One we’re used to seeing from the publisher into an animated racing paradise.
Check out the announcement trailer for the game and tell us what you think in the comments. This first trailer alone showcases a gravity-defying hairpin turn that ascends into the sky, revealing that the developers’ intentions for this game are to rival other cartoon kart racers in something completely new to them.
What this game will have over others though is the Formula One license, with drivers Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel having been transformed into top-heavy, personality-packed heroes and F1 circuits converted into over-the-top tracks built for super-charged speed.
F1 Race Stars takes its place on the grid on Xbox 360, PC and PS3 this November.
Just Dance 4’s tracklist is building, with two more tracks revealed by Ubisoft. The new tracks are “Love You Like A Love Song” by Selena Gomez and The Scene, and “The Final Countdown” by Europe.
Just Dance 4 will be released on October 2, 2012 on the Wii, Xbox 360 Kinect and PS Move for PlayStation 3. The game also will be released on the Wii U system during the console’s launch window.
Prepare to be taken over the top with Codemasters Racing’s latest announcement. F1 Race Stars transforms the technical, life-like world of Formula One we’re used to seeing from the publisher into an animated racing paradise.