Feel the passion in Bethesdas new trailer titled “Arsenal”, as members of Team ID talk about what they know best, weapons, gadgets and general mayhem. Seriously i would not want to be the enemy of any army that had these guys working in their weapon division, so thank god for world safety that they have chosen game design as a profession rather than on some secret sub atomic thermonuclear project. Rage is a fast paced first person shooter, complete with manic vehicle combat, awe-inspiring environments and stunning graphics all made possible by ID 5 technology. With a storyline set in the not too distant future, an asteroid has destroyed the Earth, leaving the remaing humans to rebuild whilst alos having to protect themselves from a whole host of gangs, mutant and evil critters.
Team Id seem to have a heavy focus on providing the gamer with a unique experience, with one member stating the aim was to provide players with different weapons, gadgets and add-ons with each new level and environment. I had to chuckle out loud with the sheer delight on of the teams faces and in his voice when describing shotguns and watching heads explode. They describe a lot of the experience is in the reaction of the gun to pulling the trigger and the representation of the mayhem it causes on the other side. As well as the massive amount of varied weapons available there are some really cool additions such as the ability to build turrets. Other gadgets such as sentry bots and robots can be used by players to take on the hoards of enemies trying to dismember you. Throughout the video the main theme seems to be the abioity for players to choose their own destiny. All gadgets and items can be manipulated in different ways meaning no 2 players will progress through the game in the same manner. Love the Western music overtones. Enjoy the trailer everyone and keep an eye out for this one its going to be EPIC.
The more we see of Prototype 2, the better it is looking every day. Today, Radical Entertainment released a new video that displays some of the powers Sgt. James Heller can use on his quest to destroy Alex Mercer, and some of these abilities turn the protagonist into what appears to be a hell bent Spider-man of sorts.
In the clip, we see Radical Entertainment explaining the Tendril ability as well as the several other techniques in Heller’s arsenal that let him destory foes in the sandbox enviroment. The Tendril powers can also create a giant web for Heller, allowing him to web up infected enemies and eventually rip them into pieces in one quick pop of gory greatness. While the video is still from a very early stage of the game, Prototype 2 is quickly becoming one of the most promising titles of 2012 due to all of these teases and it looks like there is quite a bit more to come. Check out the new clip for yourself below and be advised that this clip may not be for those with a weak stomach.
There hasn’t been a lot of information released for The Cursed Crusade yet, but it seems that Atlus has decided to let the game out of its sanctified basement because they released a whole slew of new information for the title. First of all the game will be priced at only $39.99 when it is released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
They also have revealed that release date as October 11th. Alongside this announcement came a new trailer for the title which can be seen below and the box art that you can see to the right which shows Denz in his cursed form and the differences between the two worlds, that of the normal and that of the cursed in the background. You can read our impressions of the title back when we had a chance to get our hands on it during E3 here.
Square Enix released a new batch of screenshots for Final Fantasy XIII-2 today, and in them we see some familiar faces in the forms of some old members of Team Nora from FFXIII. Besides these familiar faces we also see two areas from the game itself, a settlement in Gran Pulse named New Bodhum and a town named Bresha.
You can see the screenshots below that also include some battle images that show off some of the combat modes that will be returning such as Paradigm Shift and staggering enemies. Square Enix has yet to announce a more exact release date besides sometime next year for North America and then end of this year for Japan.
Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets Developer: GameMill Entertainment/Gunnar Games/Big Fish Games Publisher: Avanquest Software Genre: Point ‘n’ Click/Hidden Object Platform: Nintendo DS Released: 8th July
Seeking respite from the hustle and bustle of work, Claire Donnelly decides she is long overdue a visit to her Aunt’s, hoping her holiday will give her a break from the frequent migraines and visions she’s been having. But arriving at her Aunt Rosie’s, she finds her to be missing and a little exploring reveals she’s left town due to supernatural goings-on, only to return once things have been resolved. In a journey that takes Claire across Savannah, you must identify the evil forces living amongst the citizens by following your visions. Sadly, whoever was put in charge of titling appears to have failed to grasp the idea of a ‘secret’, as they have taken away much of the mystery with the mention of a ‘vampire’. Still, the plot is compelling enough and flows from scene to scene relatively fluidly.
The hidden object game is a genre yet to be perfected on Nintendo DS, despite its obvious potential given the dual screens and touch screen interface. Although this still remains the case after playing Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets, it is actually a good example of the genre, showing that the limitations of the DS don’t mean a shoddy game with a grainy interface.
You see, Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets seems to learn from the mistakes of others before it. Too many hidden object fall by the wayside due to being overambitious with the visuals, attempting some sort of 3D effect, and by trying to create an eerie, tense atmosphere with very dark surroundings. Generally, all this achieves is creating pixelated objects where the resolution can’t cope or, in the case of lighting, making the screen so dark that players can’t see what they’re doing or any of the objects, causing the playing experience to degrade into nothing more than you tapping randomly on the screen until all the objects have been found.
Crucially, Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets avoids all these problems by opting for a hand-drawn art style, keeping the in-game animation to a minimum by instead opting for static screen after static screen as you move around the world. The hidden object scenes are well-lit, as are the additional puzzles, mini-games and movement sections, meaning you can clearly identify the required objects among the arrangements of items. But, that’s not to say they aren’t well hidden, as many are blended in with the environment in clever ways where you will scroll right past them a few times before noticing them and until you finally find them (or use a hint) and wonder how you managed to miss them. It’s worth mentioning, though, that those with an original DS may struggle due to its slightly darker display, although everyone with a DS Lite upwards should be fine.
Control is handled almost entirely by the touch screen, with the exception of the L/R buttons which can be used to bring up prompt markers showing what can be interacted with and where to click to move into the next area. The touch screen control works fine, with the only major problem arising during play being that scrolling around the hidden objects scenes can be a little cumbersome with the stylus. Fortunately, this is easily solved by the option of scrolling around the screen using the D-pad, which is much more practical.
Important items are automatically moved to your inventory, just like the books which can actually be read to discover useful information and clues for your journey, even if the font is a bit small and hard to read. There are also elements that suggest the developers have had some fun designing the hidden object scenes, such as a foot-print on the underside of a shelf at head-height. God knows why there’s a cooked chicken in a drawer in the Church (see what I did there?).
Each chapter flows well, requiring some logic but remaining comfortably linear and simple to avoid anyone getting lost and having no idea what to do next. Hidden object scenes and puzzles allow you to acquire items which are then used on the environment to progress, with you often backtracking to places because initially you had nothing of use, but after picking up a certain item you can now engage with it. The completion of one thing opens up something that links to the next.
There are even measures in place to stop people getting completely stuck, as each of the puzzles offers the option of skipping it altogether once the skip icon is fully charged, whereas hidden object searches hints come in the form of pointing out an item on the list, for example if you are down to the last one but just can’t find it. This recharges over time so if you are struggling to search and taking ages, the hint icon gradually fills up to help you. The 10 chapters in total each carry an impressive albeit brief video sequence at the start. These rendered cut scenes clearly stretch the hardware to the limit, though, as it can be prone to freezing and blacking out when exerting itself in this way. Luckily, the handy auto-save function which saves after the completion of every puzzle prevents any significant loss of your progress. The voice-acting that accompanies the clips isn’t so great, although most of the dialogue is text-based for you to read yourself anyway.
Hidden Mysteries: Vampire Secrets sits as one of the better hidden object/point ‘n’ click games on Nintendo DS. It isn’t perfect, but by doing the basics right with a clear, bright layout and an adequately engaging plot, it doesn’t make a lot of the same mistakes which others have before it. The hidden object sections end up slowing down the gameplay due to such apt point ‘n’ click sections, but if it’s your style of game, it could be worth a look, especially if you consider it’s going at a reduced price point.
There has been a lot of fuss going around lately regarding L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi. There has been everything from poor working conditions to ridiculously long hours under punishing conditions from the management. Now L.A. Noire lead programmer Dave Heironymus has come out to say that all this controversy is for nothing, staying on the side of his employers.
He wrote a letter to Gamasutra about the controversy, saying:
“What is the motivation behind these attacks on Team Bondi? If the motivation were to see improvement in the working conditions at Team Bondi, then I’m all for it. All of the management and staff at Team Bondi want to improve our processes so we can make even better games in a decent timeframe, without burning people out along the way.
However, some of these comments in recent stories seem to go beyond that. Some ex-employees who left the company years ago want to see Team Bondi destroyed. They want to see 35 game developers out of a job. That seems to me to be a less laudable motivation.”
He says that the most hours he ever had to work was 65 hours on average and that was only for the final build of the game. He did say that there were a number of things that Bondi should have done different and says that the company will “learn” to not make the same mistakes again.
If you were hoping that you could get a taste of what The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has to offer before it is released on November 11th then you will be disappointed to know that Bethesda has no plans on releasing a demo for the game. But before you get up in arms about this fact, you should know that the reason they couldn’t do it is because the game is simply to big to even have a demo.
The news was revealed during a New Zealand video interview with Craig Lafferty. He said that no demo could give a decent representation of the game simply because of the game’s massive size. It’s alright Bethesda, with everything you’ve already revealed for the title anyone who was even thinking about the game will just jump at the chance anyways.
Those of us in the US may have noticed that they could use Netflix now on their 3DS and watch streaming movies from their handheld device. But apparently there was a little more to the announcement from Nintendo saying that the Netflix app was released. The announcement contained the words “Users will soon have access to an additional library of select movies that can be viewed in 3D without the need for special glasses.”
This of course means that somewhere down the line there may be 3D movies released on the 3DS that can be watched without the glasses. There hasn’t been any actual information about this service besides this little phrase in the announcement so expect more news from Nintendo somewhere down the line.
When it was revealed that PopCap Games was being bought by Electronic Arts many people were caught by surprise. Now they will be even more surprised with who else was vying for PopCap Games sweet casual game market. Forbes is reporting that Zynga had offered $1 billion in cash for the company at one point and that Zynga would have performed the deal through credit from Goldman Sachs.
The Forbes report also says that China based Tencent was also looking into purchasing PopCap Games, but couldn’t offer the same price as the other two companies. EA ended up acquiring PopCap Games with $750 million and will also be paying $550 million in performance payouts. Out of the two evils, EA would probably be the better choice because seeing Plantsville vs. Zombiesville would have made me lose all faith in gaming forever.
Hasta la vista, baby! This is how all those Terminator games SHOULD have been done! Binary Domain is an upcoming Sci-Fi squad-based third-person shooter in development by SEGA, bringing all our fears of robots taking over to an artificial life. Set in Tokyo in the 2080s, this battle with technology (and no, Im not referring to that ‘blue screen of death’ you see when using Windows) has you playing as a leader of a military squad that can either gain or lose respect for your leadership, and features voice-enabled commands via headset.
Today SEGA has launched a trailer for Binary Domain, showcasing the various weapons you can use to take out these iRobots.(That was a two-in-one pop culture reference there, you deserve a gold star for you if you got that one!) Check out the trailer below, it’s looking amazing, like Yakuza meets Terminator Salvation, except Christian Bale’s not complaining about professionalism and Binary Domain has awesome Giant Robot Spiders like in that Wild Wild West movie, but cooler. Maybe SEGA is a bit of a Will Smith Fan? This title is looking fresh and original and is sure to be a huge hit, so make sure you check out the trailer below! Binary Domain is scheduled for a February 2012 release for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Hopefully I’ll think of a few more creative robot references by the
