From the same company that brought the hit title Zenonia to the mobile (and digital handheld) market now comes Illusia, an Action/RPG/Platformer which has now hit the Android Market. Illusia will feature two heroes’ journey through seven varied, vibrant and colorful worlds as they try to unravel the mystery behind a tower that has suddenly appeared on the land. There will also be 14 different affiliates of fighter and magician classes which players can customize using the vast selections of weapons and armors.
Each time you customize your fighter or magician it will also be visually seen on the characters sprite which is a little detail I always enjoy seeing.
Gamevil released this statement to follow-up with the release of Illusia:
“Android fans of ZENONIA our series have been clamoring for more, and we’re happy to now present our latest and newest in the RPG genre,” said Kyu Lee, Head of GAMEVIL USA. “We’re sure players will enjoy and savor the strong action and role-playing experience of ILLUSIA.”
I certainly enjoyed my time spent with Zenonia (you can check out our review for the DSiWare version by clicking here), and Illusia definitely looks to be just as good and well worth the $4.99 price tag. You can check out the brand new trailer below and view Illusia’s official page on the Android Market here.
Let me start this off by telling you that last night I saw Rango, and I thought that it was absolutely fantastic. It was essentially The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly but with a cartoon lizard voiced by Johnny Depp. What about that doesn’t sound awesome?
Now you might ask why I’m bring this up in a post that is clearly about Crysis 2. Well, the score for Rango (which rocked my socks clean off) was composed by Hans Zimmer. As you’ve most likely read in the title, he will also be contributing to the soundtrack of Crytek’s latest release. If you don’t know Hans Zimmer by name, you certainly know his music. He has composed songs for films like The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, Inception, and even Lion King. The Lion King for crying out loud!
I’ll admit that I’ve never played Crysis (mostly because I use a Dell Studio 17 laptop as my main PC), but how can you not be excited about a video game score with Hans Zimmer in the credits? While you can feel free to wait until Crysis 2 is released (March 22nd in North America, 24th in Australia, and 25th in Europe and New Zealand) to listen to the soundtrack, there is also a 3 minute preview up here which is absolutely epic. Along with Rango, I’ll have to add Crysis 2 to the list of soundtracks I need to buy, and it will be available on iTunes and Amazon on March 22nd.
Battle: Los Angeles Publisher: Konami Developer: Live Action Studios Consoles: Xbox 360(reviewed), PlayStation 3 Release: March 11th 2011 (XBLA), March 22nd 2011 (PSN Price: 800 MSP ($10) Buy Now
Overview:
Movie tie-in games often come out the same time as a movie does or a few weeks before in some cases. But what happens when a developer and publisher decide to go with a downloadable movie-game instead of a full retail version. Well you get Battle: Los Angeles which was released for the XBLA when the movie was released and on the 22nd for the PSN. Does Battle: Los Angeles do anything to throw off the stigma of being based off of a movie?
Story:
Let me first say that the game does follow the general plot of the movie. First mistaken as meteors falling to earth, Aliens have invaded Earth for some unknown reason and are currently taking over cities across the globe. In Los Angeles you play as Corporal Lee Imlay and you will be fighting alongside characters from the movie.
If only the actual story was presented in a decent manner. The introductory cutscenes, and between mission cutscenes are nothing more than stop motion comics that do little to explain what is happening exactly other than saying you are a soldier, here are the enemies, this end of your gun shoots bullets, point it at the enemies. The actual story that plays out through the game takes some of the best moments of the movie and chops them down to nothing more than simple objectives.
It is quite obvious that plenty of moments from the movie are cut out when you are actually finished with the story which will only take you around forty minutes to complete. There are some pretty big flaws when a game based around a movie can’t even boast playtime longer than the movie itself which clocks in at almost two hours.
Graphics & Audio:
Some of the moments in Battle: Los Angeles are hit and miss as far as graphics go. There are a number of moments when the B:LA actually shows off a decent destructible environment engine with bits of cover chipping away, highway signs breaking under gunfire and chunks or rubble being blasted away by the enemy.
Unfortunately besides that there is nothing impressive about B:LA. There are two different enemies with the player being able to use only three actual guns and one mounted weapon. The guns themselves feel quite off as the machine gun you use feels like it is literally being shot through water. The sound feels so muffled that there are times that you may not realize you are actually shooting your gun other than the ammo counter on the HUD ticking down.
Earlier I mentioned that the cutscenes take the form of stop motion comics that are unfortunately poorly drawn in quality. They are passable at best but do not do anything to instill a good feeling about the storyline. The only time any scenes from the movie are shown is through little pictures at the opening cutscene which can quickly be forgotten. This goes double with the voice acting and the actual script.Aaron Eckhart returns to voice his character from the movie but unfortunately that is the highlight of the voicework considering the fact that everything else is as generic as possible whether it be the way the characters present themselves to the lines they say.
This comes double when you put together the fact that there is blatant in game advertising. It would have been one thing if there was a few recognizable franchises blended into the destruction, or it didn’t seem so forced. But unfortunately it is. If you aren’t shooting down the same alien again and again you are seeing a Sony Ericsson sign or an advertisement showing off the Green Hornet Blu-ray and DVD coming out soon.
Gameplay:
There isn’t a whole lot to B:LA’s gameplay beyond going from point A to point B and making sure that nothing is breathing in between you and that point. There are a couple of moments that you have to protect an ally or shoot down an aerial assault vehicle but that is unfortunately it. The gunfire from your four weapons can sometimes pass right through enemy aliens, even with a sniper shot directly to the head.
The character that players play as, Imlay, is also the worst Marine you could imagine even if he is carrying a whole bunch of equipment on himself. Players are only able to run a very short distance before he is breathing heavily and walking at a snail’s pace for a few moments. Either that or you can blast your fellow soldiers in the face for a little bit due to there being no friendly fire aspect.
Overall:
I really wish there was more to talk about and more information to give you involving the gameplay but at its best Battle: Los Angeles is a generic run of the mill shooter with aliens placed in the place of any normal enemy you could usually face. With a 800 MSP ($10) price tag there really isn’t any reason to take a second glance at B:LA unless you need a generic FPS to tide yourself over for a half hour.
We know that gaming is about more than just playing a character, following a storyline, and shooting zombies. A part of the beauty in gaming is in the community spirit. Whether it’s online gaming, walking into your local retailer, or tweeting/Facebooking developers and publishers, the gaming community is by far one of the most friendly out there.
We help fellow gamers when they’re stuck in a game and we help confused players with technical difficulties. Now the gaming community faces one of the biggest challenges a community can face: it’s time for us to help an entire country.
Japan has given us games such as Pokemon and Final Fantasy and fuelled much development across all areas of technology. The country and its people have faced a great crisis, and need support to rebuild and repair the damages to homes, companies, and lives. Even if you can only spare a few dollars, it’s still worth it knowing you have given back a little bit to a nation that has given us so much.
Every cent of donation will go to a nation that is in great need of help and support. Let them know that the gaming community cares.
If you donate, send us an email with how much you donate (receipt proof required) to [email protected] and you will earn extra cube points to be spent on awesome rewards here.
Do you enjoy pretending to be a DJ? Need more songs to mix? Activision has released 3 brand new mixes for DJ Hero 2 in the Indie Hip Hop Mix Pack. So pick up your turntable peripherals and get scratching!
Indie Hip Hop Mix Pack (available now):
“My World Premiere” by Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf Mixed With “The Red (Instrumental)” by Jaylib
“Party Hard” by The Perceptionists ft. Guru & Camu Tao Mixed With “Ghostwriter” by RJD2
“The Best Day” by Atmosphere (Remix by FSG)
The Indie Hip Hop Mix Pack is available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Microsoft for 640 Microsoft Points and on the PlayStation network for around $8.
All of the tracks will be released as downloadable singles for Wii for 300 Wii Points each.
After years of releasing absolutely zero information about the game and then that amazingly memorable trailer, Techland’s Dead Island is looking better than ever. Deep Silver released a few more screenshots today that show off the picturesque island setting that the game will take place on.
Of course it would be picturesque if it wasn’t for all of the blood on the ground there by those lounge chairs. Also it looks like the beach has seen better days. But wait a second… is that a giant zombie looking thing in a straitjacket and wearing some sort of mask on its face? Yes… that is exactly what it looks like. It seems there is much more than normal zombies to deal with on Dead Island.
As anyone can tell you, the two things I love are platformers and retro games. You can imagine then how excited I have been the last few years about the impending release of FEZ. It may seem like a lifetime ago that FEZ first came on the scene, and some may have given up waiting for it all together. Today, however, it was announced that POLYTRON, the independent studio that created FEZ, and Trapdoor, an independent Montreal based developer, will be partnering up to bring FEZ to the Xbox Live Arcade in 2011.
After three years of anticipation since its debut at the 2008 Independent Games Festival, where FEZ won the Excellence in Visual Art award, we may finally get a chance to play this game. Described as a quirky combination between Super Paper Mario and Echochrome, FEZ is a rather unique platformer with a fantastically charming retro style. Hopefully there won’t be any hiccups with Microsoft’s often rather stringent protocols for its downloadable service, and if all goes according to plan we should have our hands on FEZ before the coming apocalypse!
With a release date set its apparently time to show off what the box will look like so that way when Shadows of the Damned comes out in stores you know what you will be looking for. Today EA and Grasshopper Manufacture have released the boxart for the game, with the PS3 version and the Xbox 360 version sharing the same image.
As you can see to the right the image contains protagonist Garcia Hotspur in a purple leather jacket and pointing his skull-headed gun towards you. With Shadows of the damned being the latest creation of developer Suda 51 and Grasshopper it certianly looks like the game will be one to enjoy this summer when it comes out on June 7th.
THQ may not be having a good time on the stock market right now with a stock price still down from where it was before Homefront’s release but apparently sales of their most pre-ordered game ever are good enough for them. THQ is claiming “robust” first day sales in the U.S. and have stated that they have sold around 375,000 units.
While two million units is still far away it is a relatively good start that for the game. THQ VP Danny Bilson stated that “Due to the strong and growing demand for Homefront’s multiplayer, we continue to add dedicated server capacity,” which means that you may be able to find a multiplayer match even easier. Brian Farrell also stated that: “We are delighted with first day sales for Homefront and are already fulfilling re-orders for the game from multiple retailers.” My money is that those retailers are Walmart and Amazon.
Swarm has gone gold and given a definitive release date in both Europe and the US for both the PS3 and Xbox360. Swarm will be coming on March 23 on XBLA and March 22 on PSN in North America. Sadly, Europeans will have to wait until March 30 to get it on PSN. You can take control of the blue swarmites for the cost of 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox and $14.99 on PSN. If you are a PlayStation Plus member you can get it for the reduced amount of $12.99.
At first glance it may seem like a Pikmin type game where you have to use the Swarm to complete tasks, but it is actually more of a platformer. A platformer where you get bonus points for getting to the next checkpoint with the least amount of Swarmites ALIVE, MUHAHAHAHA!
