The last Metro: Last Light video left us with a cliffhanger. The final part of the 3 part video, which was recorded at E3 while the game was being demoed, leaves us with yet another cliffhanger, but this demo trailer has gun action galore throughout nearly the entire video.
Plus… well, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. Go ahead and give it a watch. A final, all encompassing video will be released on August 23, 2011, so make sure to visit us then to see it. What’s your take on the demo? Excited? Scared? Longing to shoot some baddies in a virtual world?
Name: Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed
Developer: Electronic Arts
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Racing
Platform: iPhone/iPad
Release: 4 August 2011
Price: $5.49 AU – $4.99 – US
Overview
Racing games do not have the best history on iOS due to inferior graphics, controls and gameplay. Personally, I have always found the controls an effort to get a good hold of – each application tends to have its own little quirks. In this department Shift 2 Unleashed was a pleasant surprise.
Gameplay
Shift 2 Unleashed has a few different modes, quick race trial, single race, multiplayer, Origin mobile and career mode. The fact that it has a variation of modes makes the game feel complete and like the effort has really gone into making it feel like a full release as opposed to a blurb for the console games.
Career mode is made up of five classes, you start on the lowest and work your way up, upgrading your car and moving onto tougher races. AS you move up in classes you also have access to more races.
Quick race trials were basically career mode on a diet, a one-lap run through with all the tracks organised into an assortment different from career mode. It’s designed to get you familiar with the courses and perhaps if you just want to pass a quick minute or so. Personally, I didn’t see much point to this as the career mode tracks wouldn’t take much longer than a few minutes anyway, although quick race trials were sometimes a good way to earn a quick buck to buy that little extra feature to deck your car out with.
The default Shift 2 Unleashed controls are utterly minimalistic, you automatically accelerate and the only time you touch the screen is in the rare occasion that you have to brake. You steer by turning the phone, which actually works a lot better than I thought it would. It doesn’t work fantastically around the tighter corners but most of the time the tracks requires turns that are simple to make cleanly. The game is aware of its limitations and usually doesn’t push them.
The default transmission setting is automatic but after playing a few rounds and seeing my driver’s little gloved hands shift gears with no input from me I thought ‘Hey, I can drive manual in real life, I can totally do it in a tiny representation of it on my iPhone’. Famous last thoughts. I spent half the race stuck in first gear trying desperately to figure out how to shift up (which some would think would be a big part of a game called Shift 2 Unleashed) until I gave up and tried to hunt down the controls information that I was never actually given. I finally found the information hidden away in the Help menu underneath a long block of miscellaneous information and was good to go. It definitely added to the challenge of driving, especially since the accelerator and gear-changing button were on the same side and managing a good start, changing gears effectively, and steering by moving the whole phone, took a couple of tries but definitely made the game more engaging. I think that anyone who wants to actually challenge themselves and feel like they’re doing more than just driving like a kid with a drawn on paper plate should definitely turn off the auto accelerate and automatic gear changes.
Shift 2 Unleashed lays out a driving path that basically keeps the speed controls at the optimal rate, boosting you during the straights and braking around the turns. As long as you stay on the path you should be sweet to win the race. The hardest part of this is fighting to get on the path in a group race where you end up colliding into several other racers and shattering your windscreen in the process.
Audio
The soundtrack comes straight from a Guitar Hero game, which was different from what I was expecting. Usually my experience with NFS games has been made up of gangsta tunes or electro/dance music that really got me into the mood for some dangerous driving. I guess they really wanted to distinguish Shift 2 Unleashed from earlier releases and the genre of the soundtrack was an easy way to do it. Each gear change is accompanied with a piston sound that makes me wonder why my car doesn’t sound like the entire engine is being flipped by a series of pistons when I change gears. I found it slightly disappointing that no sound effect accompanied crashing into someone else or ramming them, instead the phone just vibrated alarmingly and the screen showed the damage. What does a girl have to do to get some good metal crunching sounds around here?
Video
The graphics were quite good, which I had been expecting as EA had been peddling that feature. At times they were a bit pixellated but far better than one would expect from a realistic iOS game. I really like the helmet cam point of view, it provides a stronger interactive sense to the game and I think it helps driving judgement.
Conclusion
I think that EA definitely put some effort into this game and, as iOS racing games go, it was definitely leagues ahead. However, the controls leave something to be desired, difficulty and interest should come from the game itself not the fact that the controls aren’t very user-friendly. Looks-wise its quite swish, the cars are drool worthy, and the tracks don’t feel rushed and have variation to them. Overall, it is quite a good game once you get used to the controls, if you decide to make it feel like you’re actually driving the car as opposed to just letting the game do it for you.
In four hours time, the demo for Final Fantasy Type-0 will be available to Japan. If you don’t have a Japanese PSN account, you can download the demo at the official site of the game. Make sure you have an extra 332 MB of available space and have Version 6.39 Firmware.
The demo will be an updated version of the demo that was present at a Square Enix event in Odaiba. It includes seven characters in four different scenarios. Changes from that demo will include higher difficulties and new camera code.
As a special treat, the demo also includes items of summer clothing for each of the fourteen characters hidden within the demo. These items of clothing will be transferable to the full game, which will be released on October 13th. There is no word on whether the game will leave Japan at this point in time.
If you do decide to download the demo, Andriasang has a summary of the controls.
A new patch for the free-to-play Eden Eternal has been released by Aeria Games today. To date, this is the largest update for the
growing fantasy MMORPG with the inclusion of the highly anticipated new character class. The major content update includes a level cap; the warlock character class, specialising in dark arts, and spawning parasites with the use of spells; new areas to explore including regions and dungeons; the Loyalty Shop where players will be awarded points to use for purchase of items where Aeria Points are used; and the PvP “Territory War”, a free-for-all brawl between guilds to claim or defend territories.
Here’s Eden Eternal in a nutshell:
Eden Eternal transcends the limitations of a lot of free-to-play MMORPGs in terms of class allocation. You’ll begin the game as either a Warrior or a Magician, and as you progress through the world of magic and fantasy, you’ll be able to unlock up to 15 unique classes, three of which are still to be released in the coming months. This means that you’ll be able to change your class to any other one you have already unlocked, at any given time!
Now, after slashing some foes with an axe as a Warrior or causing some magical mayhem as a Magician, you feel like jumping into the shoes of childhood hero, Robin Hood? Become a Hunter then – after unlocking it of course. Turns out the bow and arrow ain’t your forte and you’d like to try your hands on some healing and buffing magic? Become a Cleric! Still unsatisfied? Then try any of the other classes in the vibrant and colourful world of Eden Eternal until you find the right one, the one that best suits you!
These guys would have to be one of my favourite developers, even though they don’t release a plethora of titles like many others, most everything they do release is damn awesome. Portal 2 couldn’t have come at a better time in a gaming market that was getting downright monotonous, being flooded with FPS essentially representing the same game in a different location. Amongst their other titles, Left 4 Dead 2 remains as one of the most popular multiplayer and online games ever. Basically what imp getting at is when these guys do something they generally do it well.
So it should be with great excitement to many that Valve has launched the Steam Trading Beta, allowing users to trade Steam Gifts and in-game items. Although the Beta only currently applies to Team Fortress 2, Valve have confirmed via Steam that “Portal 2 should be reasonably soon, and we hope to see several third party games in the next few months”.
Users can also trade any games they have purchased within the store as well as those “extra” copies that frequently come as incentives with big titles. It should be noted that only unopened games will be eligible to be accepted into the system. Steam has also implemented a new feature that allows users to save a Gift for trading at the point of purchase.
Valve announced the news not long after Blizzard introduced an Auction house in Diablo 3 that allowed players to trade their legal and ill-gained loot for real cash.
High-Def Digest has announced that retailers have gotten arelease date for Mortal Kombat Legacy for Blu-Ray: November 8. The 9 episode web series has received over 12,000,000 on youtube so far, and now its arrival to Blu-Ray will come with a bunch of special features:
Exclusive HD Content:
Mortal Kombat Legacy: Expanding The Netherrealm
A Multi-chapter documentary that shows how director Kevin Tancharoen brought his vision of the Mortal Kombat universe to life.
Mortal Kombat: Mysticism
An look into the individual powers that define each character that makes them unique.
Mortal Kombat: Gear
A feature that looks into all the weapons used by Mortal Kombat fighters.
Supplements:
Mortal Kombat Legacy: Fights
No description was given here, but perhaps this is the rehearsal footage Tancharoen has mentioned in the past.
Mortal Kombat Legacy: Fan Made
No description was given on this either, but it could possibly be a collection of fan-made movies.
High-Def Digest also go on to give some more Blu-Ray details: that the price will be $19.98 and will run for 90 minutes.
Dead Island has plenty of zombies and we’ve seen and heard plenty about them, but what about those still living on the island? Well today Techland and Deep Silver decided to give us a little bit of information on one of the female playable characters for the title. Her name is Purna and she carries a big knife as you can see in her official art below which shows that even in the face of a zombie apocalypse you can still look stylish.
But there is much more to Purna than a pretty face. She was a former police officer at the Sydney Police department and she had lost her job after killing a child molester due to the fact that no one else could touch him due to his political connections. Afterwords Purna became a bodyguard, which means she knows plenty about dealing out death. Perhaps her background may just help her survive the zombie apocalypse, or should I say you will when Dead Island is released early next month.
There are many races in the Elder Scrolls world, but so far we haven seen little of what these races will look like in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, until now. After Bethesda held a poll with their fans over what race and class should be shown off, it was selected that the Dark Elves, otherwise known as the Dunmer, would have their time to shine as well as the thief class.
Today Bethesda delivered on their promise with the above screenshot of a Dunmer thief wielding two daggers and looking quite viscous. For those who played Oblivion, you may remember that Dark Elves were talented in both weapons and magic, making them a good mixed class. Now if only November can come sooner so we can finally have The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim sitting in our Xbox 360s, Playstation 3s and PCs.
Don’t let any of the major sports organizations know, but apparently Sega and Platinum Games think that a bit of performance enhancement is A Okay, as long as it turns your skin green and scaley. In the latest character reveal for Anarchy Reigns we are introduced to a bit of a hefty fellow named Oinkie.
Oinkie is a bit more than meets the eye however, because his unique characteristic is the large canisters on his back filled with “the juice” that happen to make him mutate and become not only much stronger, but also a bit green around the gills… and stomach and pretty much everything else. You can catch the character vignette below and be sure not to make this guy angry, he may go juicing again.
What kid hasn’t had a dream where they were Batman, or most recently the Joker. Unfortunately not all of us are backed by millions of dollars nor are clinically insane so we just have to do with being imposters of the real thing. Such is the case with Monolith’s Gotham City Imposters which will be released some point 2012.
If you don’t feel like waiting that long to play the crazy looking shooter than you may want to register for the closed beta that is going to be beginning next month. The registration for closed beta began today and you can enter here, though be warned that there are a limited amount of spots available so you aren’t guaranteed an invite. The platforms available for the beta test haven’t been specified but all three are selectable in the sign up process.
