Call of Duty Black Ops publisher, Activision in conjunction with Treyarch Studios have announced an all star cast to feature in their second DLC pack, Escalation. Famed horror/zombie stars Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), will join Michael Rooker, best known for his work on the massively popular Walking Dead tv series, as well as Danny Trejo of Machete notoriety. Escalation will be made up of the Call of the Dead level plus 4 new multiplayer maps which will launch first on XBox Live on May 3rd.
The companies have stressed their dedication to producing a zombie experience unlike that ever seen before, with the storyline inspired by the legendary George. A. Romero who inbetween making such horror films as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead, took some time out to also star in the game. Mark Lamia Head of Treyarch studio describes Call of the Dead as “unreal and…taking zombies to an insane new level”, adding that this is a tribute to George A Romero and his efforts in revolutionising the zombie genre.
COD Black Ops is rated MA15+ and Escalation DLC will be available from May 3rd on the XBox Live network. Whether slaying vampires or zombies Sarah Michelle Gellar has a place on my consoles whenever she wants.
Lets face it, not everyone is good at video games. Myself excluded of course. But for those that do have difficulties in games there has lately been a few additions to the gaming universe that allow players to still advance despite their inability to perform the tasks necessary to do so. It appears that Rockstar and Team Bondi have created a way to allow players to skip through any of the game’s action sequences.
MTV Multiplayer states that Rob Nelson, Rockstar’s art director, told them that at the Tribeca Film Festival that if a player is unable to make it past an action sequence two or three times they will be given the choice to skip that section of the game. Literally saying that players “can skip those action elements and still experience the bulk of the narrative.” Sure it is good for everyone to have access to the end of a game but it still feels like if you skipped that part, you’d miss out on the whole experience.
Goverment and video games have always had problems going together. Most of the time politicians seem to care about protecting “our children” from these games that will turn them from sweet innocent little kids to morally depraved bloodthirsty savages. Out of the most unlikely of places it seems one politician cares about what is going on with your personal information on PSN.
Democratic US Senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal has sent a letter to SCEA President Jack Tretton demanding answers on the security breach and why they haven’t been so forthcoming about this information. The senator has said in his post “Compounding this concern is the troubling lack of notification from Sony about the nature of the data breach. Although the breach occurred nearly a week ago, Sony has not notified customers of the intrusion, or provided information that is vital to allowing individuals to protect themselves from identity theft, such as informing users whether their personal or financial information may have been compromised.”
Sony has been very slow about giving out any real details on what information has been or hasn’t been accessed. Hopefully we can get some answers on this soon but for now if your one of the many PSN users with a credit or debit card tied to your account, best to check with your bank or the issuing company of the card to make sure there hasn’t been any fraudulent activity on your card. If you want to read the full post and the letter sent by the senator please click the link.
Well maybe the PSN, you never really know at the moment. Hopefully it will be up on May 3rd but if not then don’t expect the demo to be available then. Moving on. THQ has announced today that they will be placing a demo for their upcoming title Red Faction: Armageddon on the XBLM and PSN on May 3rd but unfortunately those hoping for a PC demo will be left out in the cold as no PC demo is planned at the time.
The demo will allow players to take control of Darius Mason and fight through some Martian sewers and aliens. He will do this through the Nano Forge which deals massive damage and is even able to restore things it destroyed and the Magnet Gun which will allow you to throw entire buildings at your enemies. Nothing says you want to kill something like a house in the face right?
Well if you were waiting for F.3.A.R to be released this next month then you will be soundly disappointed by the following news. Neil Castle who is the community manager for the title told the Official Xbox Magazine that the delay itself involves the studio’s commitment to releasing a high quality title. Either that or they didn’t want to contend with other high profile titles that were already being released in May.
Dungeon Siege II, Duke Nukem Forever and now F.3.A.R have dropped back a month. FEAR 3 itself though has suffered a number of delays however. The title was originally meant to be released last year at some point but then saw a delay until March 2011, then May 2011 and now yet again. Unfortunately no other actual statement was given about why the title was released, so it is all guess work at this point.
For a long time now, there have been 3 heroes on Playstation consoles. These heroes and their respective sidekicks have kicked butt, saved their worlds and attained fame, all while helping Sony keep the fans happy and the Playstation disc readers busy. Now Ratchet, along with Clank, Jak & Daxter and Sly, helped by Bentley, tackle the Playstation 3 and Move controls for a new generation of gamers. This is the first time all 3 of these guys have been grouped together into one game, and indeed, this is the first time most of them have been on the PS3. So, yea, you could say that the developers had a heavy burden placed upon. The burden to not mess up, and to continue the legacy that these characters have built.
All three of the adventurers are on missions when suddenly they are mysteriously transported to a strange, alien world. Seeing as how none of them have seen each before, there is an understandable amount of superstition amongst them. Out of nowhere, a nasty looking alien informs the trio that they have all been so good about protecting their worlds that now it is time to compete against each other for ultimate bragging rights; a Heroes’ Olympic, if you will. Clank and Bentley then surmise that somehow their home worlds have been paused, much like TiVo. All three parties then agree that yes, a little competition would be nice. After all, they are there anyway, right?
Cut to the nasty aliens again though, and it appears that a trap is afoot. Will our brave animals and other scruffy, lovable characters make it out alive? Its tough to say, but I have reason to believe that they do. It is unfortunate that getting to that point is a long and sluggish affair though. Although each and every one of the franchises comes from a respected pedigree of games that usually had entertaining, if not outright awesome stories, it is a little disappointing how clichéd and boring the plot in this game is. Although it obviously started out interesting enough as mentioned above, things quickly took a turn for the worse and nothing much in the way of super exciting stuff happens. As a result, there is a little construction of character development, and the oppurtunity to cleverly write some interesting interactions between the 3 drastically different heros is wasted.
Moving on to gameplay, matters take an even bigger turn for the worse. Playstation Move Heroes is basically just a collection of mini games that occasionally make use of the gameplay elements that made these heroes heroic in the first place. The first collection will have you have throwing a futuristic looking frisbee at cages. After the frisbee is thrown, it is possible to control it with the Playstation Move wand. Once you a hit a cage, the prisoner inside is allowed to escape, and you are one step closer to a gold medal on that challenge. Hooray.
Other activities include bowling through crazy explosive environments, still trying to free prisoners, this time by using the bowling ball (which can can explode) to collect crystals, which in turn fuels a rocket, which in turn will take off and free the convict. Okay.
The most exciting of the modes is combat. Protecting the cages from robots or just plain killing mechanical enemies is always a highlight in any game, and this game thankfully makes no excpetion. Whether it is with Ratchet’s Wrench, or a huge ass whip, there is nothing better than bringing the pain down. The Move controls add an interesting touch to this formula as well. It does give a better feel to the experience, as I actually felt like I was swing a massive wrench and taking down goons. Other controls like dodging and shielding are also well implemented, although there were slight hiccups in the camera and movement department. Namely, sometimes it felt very sluggish, or the camera would get stuck.
It really is a shame though that the great combat implemented could not have been used in a more creative way. These franchises have been known for having amazing platforming and combat. Since the foundation for all of them has already been laid, there should have been no reason why a terrific game with an actual campaign, multi-player and the works was not implemented. A lame collection of repetitive mini games is no substitute for quality, and even some great controls in combat can not fix that. It feels like this was just a lazy cash in to promote motion controls, and the only way to attract the hardcore crowd was to put respected franchise characters into the game. But glorified tech demos, like frisbee and bowling, is a sure way to merely alienate those most interested in seeing these legendary characters be a success.
One of the most hyped features of the game was coop. Unfortunately, coop is an even worse experience in this game. A friend can help take the sting out the dull nature of the game, but the coop is still a mess of broken gameplay that will quickly leave you feeling angry and frustrated.
As far as graphics go, I would say that all the character models looked pretty spot on. Backgrounds and environments looked acceptable, but they are far from being the best that the system has to offer. I did appreciate the colors used though. This is a very colorful game, and that helped dispell a little of the boredom. A little more variety in palette would have gone a long way though.
Audio in the game is also acceptable. The original voice actors were brought on board for this project, and they add a nice touch to the game. To bad that the rest of the game does not support their hard work and talent.
In conclusion, this game is just not good. A solid foundation was already laid down by these franchises.
Nihilistic needed to build a game that respected the roots of each franchise while creating a new experience. Yes, that would have been more work, but designing a slovenly collection of mini-games is much worse. Uninspired gameplay nearly ruins everything in the game, and hopefully the next sequels to each respective franchise can fix the horror that was done to them this round.
If, like me, you’ve been waiting (not so) patiently for your copy of the new Jurassic Park game from Telltale, it looks like you’ll be waiting another few months yet.
I noticed a couple of days ago that the release date on the game’s Steam page had been changed from the vague “April 2011” to the much vaguer “2011”, and this morning we received confirmation that the game had been officially delayed.
An email from Telltale Games CEO, Dan Connors, was sent to customers who had placed a pre-order, stating “the game’s mechanics and storytelling have come together in such a way that we see great potential, so much so that we feel we can push these elements to the next level if we spend some extra time working on them. It is because of this that we are delaying Jurassic Park: The Game on PC to ensure PC players get the best possible gaming experience.”
The game is now due sometime between September and November, with a simultaneous release across all platforms.
It’s not all bad news though; as compensation, Telltale Games are giving customers a 100% refund on their pre-orders, and are throwing in a free copy of a Telltale game of your choice. If you’ve placed a pre-order, you will receive the details of the compensation via email within the next few days.
While the delay is disappointing, the end result can only benefit from the extra time put into development. Let’s hope that when it finally hits the virtual shelves, the wait will have been worth it.
Two Tribes has some awesome news for all you Toki Tori fans, as the chubby little chicken as flown his way (yes i know chickens cant fly), onto the android market. Iphone, PC and Wii owners have already had the pleasure of playing this entertaining and highly addictive game with features never seen before in puzzle platformers. Users have described the android version as a “perfect port”, that runs perfectly on all android devices.
Players will have their puzzle solving skills pushed to the limit as they guide Toki Tori through 80 beautifully crafted levels across 4 different worlds in a quest to collect as many precious eggs as possible. Throughout his adventures Toki Tori will have a huge arsenal of weapons at his disposal, including the infamous Telewarp, Instantrock and Slugsucker, all which need to be combined to successfully navigate through each level ranging from simple to pure diabolical. Packed with multi-touch controls, cool items and weapons, Toki Tori is a must for any Android users game library.
Toki Tori is available now from the Android Market for $2.99
Check out the official Two Tribes Facebook page here
Thanks to the financial results briefing notes that were released today after the meeting was finished with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata we now know that a new, previously unannounced feature will be used in Star Fox 64 3D when it releases on July 14th in Japan. The feature that it will be using is the Gyro Sensor that is built into every 3DS hand held.
Unfortunately as these were only the notes there was no other information given as to how the gyroscope will actually be worked into gameplay though we can guess that it will allow the player to control Fox’s Arwing during gameplay but tilting a 3DS usually causes the 3D effects to not work properly so it is an odd inclusion to the title. We can expect more information soon from Nintendo about this feature and hopefully a release date for the rest of the world.
One thing that never gets old is the mysterious websites that publishers release with the whole countdown approach. If you remember, Dragon’s Dogma and Tales of Graces F both featured mysterious websites before an announcement was finally made for either title, and now it seems it is time to begin speculation as yet another website has launched from Namco along with a timer, which sets the date in question to May 12th.
Now from the picture, I want to say based on the sword alone, this could very well be a new Soul Caliber title or maybe even a new Tales game, but everything until Namco breaks their silence in just sheer speculation. Another thing to note is the url in question, which includes the phrase “beginning_of_the_new_chapter”, so I definitely want to believe this is looking like a follow-up or continuation of a past series (Yeah, I know, still not very helpful). We will keep a close eye on this website and as soon as more comes forward on this mystery, we will be sure to let you know. So what do YOU think this mystery project is? Check out the link for yourself by clicking HERE.
