Yesterday Warner Brothers Interactive revealed that they have been working alongside Monolith Productions to make an XBLA, PSN and PC title involving the Batman universe in a way that we have yet to see in gaming. Gotham City Imposters will take players and place them in the Batman world but they will not be playing an iconic supervillain or even Batman himself, instead they will be playing imposters, or copy cats.
The concept art released today helps answer a few questions about the title such as what these characters may actually look like and how the game itself may unfold. Sure it just shows various people trying their best to look like Batman or Joker but it proves that players should be able to customize themselves anyway they want as long as it is similar to either Batman or Joker in actual appearance. The game itself will be a first person shooter and there currently hasn’t been a release date given, nor a price tag.
It looks like the legends of The Burned Man may be true after all. Especially if you download Fallout: New Vegas’ latest DLC pack Honest Hearts. Which you can now if you own the PC or Xbox 360 version of the game, because PlayStation 3 users have unfortunately suffered a set back to development and will find their Honest Heart package released at a later date.
For 800 MSP or $10 you will be able to venture into the Zion National Park and come into a war between the Burned Man himself, the missionaries that are there as well as the various tribes that have existed in Zion since the fallout. You can pick up the DLC here for the Xbox 360 version of Fallout: New Vegas.
Sony announced their welcome back program yesterday, which was met with mixed reactions, but mainly positive. I’m not complaining about free games, the only people complaining are the people who already have them, which is the minority. The only complaint I have would be that Sony should be giving us PS2 emulation on all PS3 consoles, not just the initial models that support it. Sony took away that functionality to save on “costs”, this was when they weren’t turning around profits on the manufacturing of PS3’s, but those days are over. The days of the Ps2 are also over and surely they don’t need to make anymore profit from the thing, it’s been 10 years, get over it!
We also don’t want HD remakes, which capitalize on our desire to play old games for profit, surely Sony could implement resolution up-scaling into the PS3 with PS2 games, the same way they do video and the same way the Xbox 360 does.
The playstation community used to be quite vocal and angry about this change, but it seems everyone has forgotten about it, well I’m not so much. I want it and now would be the perfect time for everyone to be demanding of Sony since they’re in a vulnerable position publicly, but I doubt my one post is going to do something to change their minds. So maybe the below work of art will, or maybe it’ll just make me feel better that I can’t play Final fantasy X on my PS3 yet. It’s all about the small victories!
If you like Dynasty Warriors 7 and have some expendable money then you should keep reading because Tecmo Koei just announced a handful of extra Dynasty Warriors 7 DLC. This is set to release on the Xbox Live and PSN on May 24th. Of course that is only if the PSN Store is back online by then. There will be a mix of downloadable weapons, costumes and maps. The costumes you can see above which will be a bunch of school unfirms for fighters of the Wei kingdom. That costume pack will cost $4.99 or 400 MSP.
Also announced was a New Weapon Pack 2 that will cost $1.99 or 160Â MSP and will give players a Short Pike and Mace weapon. Costume Pack 2 will only be $0.99 or 80 MSP and will give the Dynasty Warriors 5 costumes to the purchaser. Finally the Stage Page 1 will provide levels from Dynasty Warriors 2, namely the Yellow Turbans and Hulao Gate stages for $3.99 or 320 MSP. The Wei Kingdom school uniforms are obviously the best pick of this DLC package, as fighting hundreds of warriors in school outfits is certainly worth a laugh or two.
Yesterday Sony went into detail about their “Welcome Back” package that would offer free games to those affected by the PlayStation Network outage. Sony offered a number of good games, including five PS3 games to pick two from as well as four PSP games to choose from.
Now you can never give something away for free and still see people getting angry about the free things offered to them. I myself was not very impressed with the offers and I was not alone. However Sony has addressed this criticism and apologized to those who either own everything listed or aren’t interested in the games provided.
In a reply to various comments about the offering, Sony’s Nick Caplin responded “I’m really sorry tha there is nothing there that you want. We’ve tried really hard to put together a list of high quality BD games, rather than simply offering cheaper PSN titles. The average metacritic rating for these games is over 84%, so these are high quality games. Unfortunately with a user base of 77m people, it is really hard to offer something for everyone.”
This is understandable as even a voucher system would cost Sony greatly. Though I can see that if Sony did indeed offer a credit system to their users, this would also have given back to the publishers and developers that lost money due to the outage and loss of sales by Sony giving restitution. Oh well, free is free in the end.
Fans of the Rune Factory series in the United States can breathe a little bit easier because Natsume has just issued out a press release that stated that Rune Factory: Oceans would be making its way to the United States on the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. The game will be receiving a name change to Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny but that is nothing more than a cosmetic difference.
Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume said that they “know our loyal fans have been patiently awaiting news of a North American release for Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny” and this announcement brings the “vast region to explore, a wonderful cast of characters, and a huge variety of activities to enjoy.” Natsume is planning to reveal more about this title at E3 this year and this is the first time that a Rune Factory title has made its way to the United States on the PlayStation 3.
I’m sure that everyone that writes on our website here that owns a 3DS is carrying it around practically everywhere they go. Also I’m sure that if you yourself own a 3DS then you are doing the same in an effort to find anyone else with the handheld and pick them up via the SpotPass system. Now if you are planning to go to a Best Buy at all then you should probably take your 3DS with you because starting on June 7th, Best Buy will begin delivering 3DS owners content through SpotPass.
This includes “exclusive offers as well as additional entertainment content such as gaming extras and movie trailers.” We are not entirely sure at this moment as to what will be given out but it is always welcome to see the 3DS getting some more love. Especially considering the SpotPass has been barely used by the majority of 3DS owners. Also considering Nintendo had to enter a partnership with Best Buy, this might be a sign of good things to come. That is unless this gets delayed just like the eShop did…
The latest trailer for Dead Island shows off a little bit of in game footage, though the footage is mostly of the characters running away from some unseen zombie mob as well as the zombies themselves. The variety in the zombie models we can see here seems to show that there will be plenty of diversity in the zombies that you will be hacking through in Dead Island.
Also, as evidenced by their first trailer released this year Dead Island is hoping to strike an emotional chord with its players. You can see in the trailer that there is a lot of emotional drama that can play out simply through basic gameplay alone. Hopefully Dead Island will be able to deliver on these emotional aspects as the majority of the marketing has been aiming right at the heart strings. We’ll know more at E3 when another trailer is set to be released.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent can be seen as one of the most terrifying games released in the past few years and rightfully so. Now a few weeks ago Valve ran what they called a Potato Sack promotion and allowed Steam users to gain access to the Justine expansion pack of the title, which allowed players to make their way through a number of test chambers, though if you failed someone died horribly.
Now this DLC is available for everyone and is available as an update called 1.2 and can be downloaded from Frictional Games’ website. Besides the extra content there will also be five short stories included by Amnesia’s main writer so it is definitely a plus. Also released today was the soundtrack for the game. If you happened to pre-order or buy Amnesia directly from Frictional themselves then you don’t have to spend a dime, otherwise you will have to purchase it from their store. This way you can listen to psychological horror background music while trying not to freak out on the highway or something like that.
The Curse of the Black Spot is the third episode in the 6th series of the resurrected season of Doctor Who. The episode takes place on a pirate ship that’s stuck out at sea and is haunted by a deadly sea-siren. It’s up to the Doctor and a crew of pirates to solve the mystery behind the siren and the black spot.
Yarr, me ‘ardies!
Plot
The plot of this episode involves a pirate ship, it’s crew, a sea-siren and a black spot… or rather, many black-spots.
The TARDIS crew land aboard a mysterious pirate ship out at sea and quickly find themselves at the mercy of the ships captain. Though, he isn’t really all that merciful at all, it isn’t until one of the crew gets gashed that he starts to back down to be more lenient with The Doctor and his companions. You see, this is also where we find out the main danger in this episode, which is a black spot that appears on any wounded persons hand. I would also like to point out that it is in a similar position to where the transmitter-communications device thing that The Doctor installed into everyones hands in the last episode.
The main villain is, of course, a sexy sea-siren who uses the spot to mark her victims before taking them into the netherworld. Of course, there is a major twist to do with the siren in this episode; and you should have worked it out, or at least had a decent theory made up, by the time Rory gets taken by her.
Take her hand, you know that you want to.
Personally what I liked about this episode, is that The Doctor always seems to be one step behind the monster until towards the end. Every time he thinks that he has it worked out, something else happens and he has to react to it, he can’t work it the cause until after something bad has happened; and this makes it great. Seeing The Doctor without all the answers is really awesome and I would really like to see this concept come about more often in this series.
Another interesting thing about the plot also involves Rory. He becomes, kind of almost dead and leaves it up to Amy to have him resuscitated, he does this in a pretty witty way by telling her to do it the way it’s shown on TV. And just like on TV, there’s a moment where it doesn’t seem like she has made it, but then when you least expect it; BOOM! He’s alive and it’s all incredibly dramatic.
The one thing that I really, really like though, is that the ending sets up that the pirate crew may be able to return in a future episode by giving them a spaceship. Maybe this will link into the season final? I don’t think it will personally, but it would be cool if it did. I should probably have mentioned somewhere that the siren was a medical program who was marking her patients and stuff. It’s all pretty cool like that.
Audio
The background audio as well as sound effects are all beautifully integrated in this episode, and this gives you an epic feeling of whats going on.
The background tones in this particular episode are mostly ominous as well as luminous. They create this feel of intrigue and mystery, especially with the sirens song. Even the more triumphant tracks in the episode keep this feeling and tone and this helps to keep with the general gloomy atmosphere of the episode.
Amy Pond had just bested an entire crew of trained pirates.
This episode probably has some of my favorite musical moments in the season so far, you can listen to it in the background while typing a review on it and get the perfect impression as to what’s happening in the story. This is incredibly great as it allows viewers to keep in tune with the episode should they need to leave the television for any reason. I mean, I can feel the startle from the background music, how awesome is that!
Believability
For some reason, I didn’t like the way the show opened; it just didn’t seem all that dramatic or believable. Like, right at the beginning of the episode, they had a perfect moment to cut into the intro with a perfect kind of cliff-hanger moment, but instead opted to have it much further in at an incredibly awkward moment. This almost completely removed me from the episode, but luckily, I was able to get back into it soon after the credits played.
This episode is full of unbelievable moments for me as well, like when Amy was engaging some of the pirates in a sword fight. They just didn’t seem menacing or blood-thirsty or even cutthroat enough to be pirates. I mean, sure they could have been too scared to engage, but it really didn’t feel like that at all. It was painfully obvious that Amy had no idea how to use the sword correctly and I’m pretty sure that at least one of the pirates would have had some idea on how to disarm a sword without causing much damage.
This will make a great wallpaper.
All the unbelievable moments in this story are in the beginning moments and the episode does steadily become more and more real once the pirates and The Doctor’s crew begin to work together to survive the wrath of the sea-siren. By the time you have reached the 30% mark, you’re completely drawn in and it becomes classic Doctor Who.
Overall
This episode of Doctor Who seems pretty weak when placed next to such a strong opening to the series. But! It is also an incredibly entertaining story and one that is full of mystery and all kinds of problems that need to be solved. The characters develop a little and we get to see a side to The Doctor that we rarely have ever seen, the side of him that is always one step behind and that is quite cool to experience. It’s an incredibly fun run and this episode certainly lends itself greatly to the series as a whole.
Considering the nature of the series we will not issuing a score, but rather a recommendation. There may be more reviews for this show in the future and possibly one when the series ends or the box-set is released.
