If you like Gears of War you’ve most likely read my impressions of the Gears of War 3 Horde 2.0 mode that I was shown at the Microsoft booth during E3. If you haven’t then don’t worry too much because Epic Games has released the same video they showed off to us behind closed doors today.
The video can be best seen as a tutorial video which shows off Horde 2.0 in action and emphasizes all of the changes that they have made to the Horde mode as a whole. The video itself is narrated by Anya Stroud, one of the main characters of the Gears of War 3 campaign and a playable character in the multiplayer mode. Catch the video below!
If you ever thought of being a paid hitman, but couldn’t be bothered with years of training, hiding from the authorities and the constant travel then you can at least deck out your Avatar in Hitman clothes. Hitman: Absolution clothing to be exact.
Square Enix has released a line of Avatar items onto the Xbox Live Marketplace. These Avatar items include Agent 47’s classic outfit; including his suit, red tie and leather gloves as well as his briefcase that holds all of his tools, and a strange looking mask that makes your face look similar to Agent 47’s including the barcode on the back of the head. Prices vary depending on what item you want to purchase of course, but there’s nothing to stop you from picking these up now.
Continuing down the path of releasing DLC, Bethesda has announced today when fans of Fallout: New Vegas can expect to be playing the next addition to the game. Old World Blues as it is called will be the third DLC package for the game and it will be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on July 19th. The pack appears to place players trapped as test subjects for some strange science experiment.
As you can see above this includes a very strange looking computer with eyes and lips as well as robotic radscorpions. The DLC will be preempted with a patch for the game on all platforms which will improve stability and fix other performance problems with New Vegas. Bethesda also stated that we should be expecting a trailer for Old World Blues soon.
Any SEGA fan should know that Sonic the Hedgehog’s 20th anniversary is tomorrow and SEGA is celebrating this anniversary with the release of a demo for Sonic Generations. The demo will contain a modern level and the classic Green Hill Zone stage. The demo will be available in 3D for those who download the demo on the PlayStation 3 and have a TV capable of displaying the 3D properly.
Sonic Stadium obtained this news and the news that the demo will be going live tomorrow for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Also announced is a 20th Anniversary Bundle which will include Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Sonic Adventure and a Sonic 4 Dynamic Theme for the PlayStation 3. The bundle will cost $19.99 and is currently only announced for the PSN but one can expect an Xbox Live equivalent to be announced in the near future.
Have you ever wanted to aim down the sight of your gun, steady your aim and take down that twelve point buck but never really wanted to harm another living creature? Well my weak bellied friends you soon will be able to, or at least in some form because Activision has announced that their next Cabela hunting title will use the Kinect.
This news comes from the ActivisionHunts twitter account which handles everything Cabela related in the gaming world. The tweet itself says “We’ve reached 1500 followers! News: @ActivisionUSA / @Cabelas hunting franchise expands this year with a brand-new @Xbox #Kinect experience!” Exactly how the Kinect will be integrated has yet to be seen but will most likely be detailed in the future.
Valve’s Gabe Newell spoke at Games for a Change today in New York City and there he said that Portal 2 has reached over 3 million copies sold since it was released on April 18th. He didn’t actually mention what platforms had sold the best or whether or not this was sales on one specific platform but it can probably be inferred that he meant all platforms.
Gabe Newell is most likely the best source of sales data because Steam is usually quiet about sales through their service and Gabe actually has access to this data. When Portal 1 was released it had sold four million total copies between its release and Portal 2’s release. It’s always good to see a game sell well, which means that there could be another Portal title in the future, or maybe finally Half Life 3?
The Cursed Crusade has just received a new trailer from Atlus and it does a good job of picking up the hype for the title. I had a chance to get my hands on the title and run through an entire level and you can read my preview of the gamehere. There I was able to get a small taste of the story and a healthy sampling of the combat.
This new trailer however helps explain a little bit of the storyline and also shows off some gameplay segments. The Cursed Crusade is going to be released sometime in the Fall of this year for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC and will be fully co-operative both locally and online.
If you ever wanted to be a super hero but didn’t want to have to pay any extra money to be one then you are in luck. Paragon Studios has announced today that their seven year old MMO City of Heroes will soon be a free to play title. The developer has announced a City of Heroes Freedom version of the game that will be launched later this year.
The Freedom version of the game will give players access to most of the areas and features in the game and players can pick and choose exactly what areas they want to have access to instead of being restricted to a pre-set list. Anyone who chooses to still pay money will have access to the whole game for free and will also get a special reward each month to choose from. This certainly sounds interesting and should be a good way to attract new customers to the title.
You have to hand it to Activision and Treyarch. When it comes to getting the most out of their licensing of a song they really use the heck out of it. For example we have the song Gimme Shelter as the background music again for the first actual trailer released for the Call of Duty: Black Ops Annihilation map pack.
The trailer itself also features the hamburger cook who appears to be working in less than sanitary conditions. Besides the cook however we are also treated to a quick look at all of the multiplayer maps as well as a better look at some of the zombies and guns we will be using on the new zombie map Shangri-La.
Ah Supanova, how fun you were to us over the weekend 😀 Out of both days of the event, I remember the second day being the most fun considering all of the celebrity interviews we obtained, the panels we attended and having a massive Capsule Computers party at the event (party as in Final Fanstasy meaning, not so much alcohol and house trashing). Be sure to check out Day 1 if you haven’t already.
Day 2
Today’s event was much smoother from the time we were allowed in. I managed to buy some Star Wars: Legacy trade paper backs (the final three! *finally* get to see the series end) before I met up with Kelly at the event. After meeting up, we took a quick walk around and decided to play some Child of Eden at the GAME booth. Man, that game can be difficult sometimes! A friend of mine bumped into me while I was playing and asked me about the game. Unfortunately, I was in gaming mode an I’m sure my answer was close to undecipherable. Apologies.
After our time gaming, we headed down to the Guest area to interview Sean Maher, who everyone knows best from FireFly and Serenity. He played Dr. Simon Tam and is quite cool. Sean is an amazing guy and we absolutely loved him! Also, during the interview, when he faux punched me in the face, I landed on my sunglasses and they broke. TROPHY! The interview went really well and you can watch it here.
Thanks Sean! 😀 TROPHY!
Shortly after our interview with Sean Maher, we were able to score an interview with David Nykl! Who you all may know as Zelenka from Stargate Atlantis! That brings us to a total of two SGA cast members interviewed, I hope that in coming months and years that we are able to get the entire main cast. Anyways, we were only able to get ~10mins with him due to his signing obligations (and 5 of those were spent teaching us camera physics) but we ended up with an amazing interview and are incredibly greatful for the opportunity to meet him. Be sure to check out the interview here!
After completing this batch of interviews, we headed off to meet up with some other editors here at Capsule Computers, Spike and Grace, and hung out for a bit. We ended up going to meet the voice actor of Tychus Findlay (Of StarCraft) and Optimus Prime (Transformers, Robots in disguise), who is played by Neil Kaplan. Neil is such a friendly guy, I think we had a fair few of us get our autographs with him, which was great! We also got an interview with him, which *updated* Link here!.
KAMEHAMEHA!!!!
During this point in time, we also managed to check out the Kamehameha contest. This contest is now a staple at every convention here in Australia and is always entertaining to watch. For this edition of the contest, I’m kind of glad a serious entry won, as opposed to a silly entry, even if the winner was a small child with the cute factor going into it. The final round was a small Goku versus a Gengar (the pokemon). The winner recieved a very nice gaming headset, courtesy of Razer, as well as Razer themed clothing. The runner up also recieved clothing, but no headset. Gratz’ winner and runner up!
After scoring our interview and checking out the Kamehameha contest (as well as a little bit of the cosplay comp while waiting for Neil) we bumped into a friend of mine who is a quite popular cosplayer. On this day, he was walking around as a boxed pokedex for his costume, complete with working pokedex noises. Nice. He was also accompanied by a Cloud cosplayer, that we managed to convince to let us hold his sword (that’s what she said). We got some pretty cool photos of it.
Oh, did I forget to mention that it was a Buster Sword?
After spending some time exploring, we went down to see Barbara Eden, with whom we were able to interview about various things. Unfortunately we weren’t able to do a video interview, for various reasons, but were still able to record a voice interview. Be sure to check out our transcript here! Barbara was incredibly nice and beautiful! I know that both Kelly and Myself were quite proud to have met her.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out, having fun and the like. I ran into more people I know, like the Project Ouroborous team (they do Umberella Corps cosplays). We ended up buying some merchandise and maybe even a sword.
Tallies for the weekend
Energy Drinks Consumed – 4 (1 on the way to Sydney, 2 at the convention and 1 on the way home) Merchandise Obtained – 9 (3 shirts (Brewfest, Highschool of the Dead and Dungeons & Dragons), 3 Star Wars comics, a Soul Eater wallet, a Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann keychain and a Devil May Cry 4 armband) Photos taken – Many, not sure about the others though (mine were 3DS ones, which can be found here). People met – New ~6-7, Pre-Known ~15-20 Capsule Computers Staff in attendance (known) – ~5-6
