Now there has always been that uncanny valley between real life and video games. What that means is that there never really has been a truly life like appearance of a character in a game that could relate to real life. There have been great graphics that is for sure but even then there is always that uncanny valley. L.A. Noire may not have the facial designs to overcome that valley but they are trying their best.
With their latest release of screenshots L.A. Noire has shown off a batch of different faces within the game. We see the different facial emotions that one wouldn’t normally expect within a game such as worry lines appearing on the forehead of a character or wrinkles appearing as they concentrate on something. These different subtle emotions will most likely bring the characters to life in L.A. Noire, and as long as everything else falls into place we may be seeing some of the best emotion exhibiting characters to date.
Remember when APB was first released? Well not many people do as the game met with it’s unfortunate demise shortly after it’s release due to many different factors. A few of these factors were poor reviews among the public and also a very small user base that dwindled as the game began to sink fast. That doesn’t mean however that the developers of the game were willing to let it die however.
APB will soon be re-released as a free to play version of its old self and will be titled APB Reloaded. But those who are willing to get a taste of the game early will soon have a chance to get into the closed beta that will begin in February according to a tweet on APB Reloaded’s official Twitter. You can sign up now on the game’s official website though there have not been any invites sent out yet of course. There has been no announcement of what changes have been made to the gameplay, if any, but I’m sure that they will be discovered quickly after the beta begins.
Over the years, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has rated many games and described them, in order to keep us safe from ourselves. They are also our best hope at keeping governments off our backs. But, something tells me that Bulletstorm may be the most awkward game they have reviewed yet. Bulletstorm has created a plethora of gamer and media attention by being racously funny in an offensive way. Check out the ESRB’s description of the game.
This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a space pirate who must escape a planet populated by mutant cannibals. Players use futuristic machine guns, shotguns, magnum revolvers, assault rifles, and chain guns to perform over-the-top kills that dismember and decapitate foes. Injured enemies emit large sprays of blood that stain the ground and surrounding walls. Specialty kills (i.e., Skillshots) represent the most intense instances of violence: enemies can be dismembered with explosives; impaled on spikes; and drilled into walls, resulting in body parts breaking into pieces. During the course of the game, players can consume alcohol and kill enemies in order to receive an Intoxicated Skillshot; the screen turns blurry during these sequences. The dialogue contains numerous jokes and comments that reference sexual acts, venereal diseases, and having sex with one’s mother (e.g., “Guess I know where the ol’ gal got that limp.”). The names of some Skillshots are infused with sexual innuendo (e.g., Gag Reflex, Rear Entry, Drilldo, Mile High Club); one Skillshot (i.e., Fire in the Hole) allows players to shoot at enemies’ exposed buttocks. Language such as “f**k,” “sh*t,” “p*ssy,” and “c*ck” can be heard in dialogue.
If you have played the original Dead Space game, more than likely you will be extremely familiar with the Plasma Cutter weapon. After all, one of the achievements in the game centered around beating the game with only that single, solitary gun.
The good news is that if you have any save file from the original game, completed or not, you will automatically unlock the plasma weapon for use in the sequel, Dead Space 2. The bad news is that the upgrades you made to the weapon in the first game will not carry over. Too bad.
Dead Space 2 is set to release on January 25, 2011. Are you ready to blast away the alien scum?
Think of the worst product name you have ever seen. Wii? Yes, that may have made many Westerners giggle, but it has still got nothing on the one your about to read. How about iPad? The instant it was announced, Apple haters, tech journalists and even some Apple fans instantly laughed on internet forums across the world. Maybe the Bloggie, Sony’s new video recorder, comes to mind. Not only does that name make it sound like your 5 when you say it, it also makes you look a little like a dork. Still, the worst name for a product that I have recently seen is the Skunk Juice Ear Buds. The name combines excretion and blatant visualization of the worst atrocities that a person may ever experience.
However, the product does have a few things going for it. It combines magnets with headphones, so that if they get ripped out, your ear lobes will not follow. You can also apparently connect many different headphones at once for those intimate, MP3 music sharing moments so many people like to have. Check out the screenshot and video for details.
Michael Jackson: The Experience Developer: TRIUMPH INTERNATIONAL, INC Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Music/Dance Platform: Wii (PSP, DS, Xbox 360 Kinect, PS3) Released: 26 November
Michael Jackson: The Experience had been in development for a long time until its release late on in 2010. Some may have proclaimed otherwise, saying it was just a quick cash-in job by Ubisoft trying to make the most of the shock and hype that surrounded untimely death of the singer, song-writer and dancer, or more recently, a cash-in of the festive period and the sales frenzy that goes along with Christmas. However, it had long been known that a game was in-development. In fact, its release was meant to coincide with the planned tour that never came to after Michael Jackson’s death, so the game has been in development for a while now, and it certainly shows.
In a lot of ways, Michael Jackson: The Experience is basically just ‘Just Dance: Michael Jackson’. The user interface in-game, as well as the instructions moving up the side of the screen during gameplay are identical to that of Just Dance 2 which released earlier in the year and achieved sales success. Conversely, it must have sold well for a reason, so if Ubisoft held a winning formula in Just Dance 2, why not carry it over and mould it to suit Michael Jackson the experience. It turns out this was their thinking exactly, and although in Michael Jackson: The Experience you’ve got a game that shares a lot of similarities with Just Dance 2, the game has clearly been stylised to portray a true representation of the King of Pop along with his unique dance techniques.
Michael Jackson: The Experience consists of two main modes, ‘Dance’ and ‘Dance School’, both of which are fairly straight forward. As you will have probably guessed, you spend the majority of your time in ‘Dance’ as this is where the main bulk of the package is located – the dancing part. There is a choice of 27 songs in this Wii version, which are as follows:
-Another Part of Me*
-Bad
-Beat it
-Billie Jean
-Black or White
-Dirty Diana
-Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough
-Earth Song
-Ghosts
-Heal the World
-In the Closet
-Leave Me Alone
-Money
-Remember the Time
-Rock With You
-Smooth Criminal
-Speed Demon
-Streetwalker
-Sunset Driver
-The Girl is Mine
-The Way you Make Me Feel
-They Don’t Care About Us
-Thriller
-Wanna Be Startin’ Something
-Who Is It
-Will You Be There
-Workin’ Day and Night
As you can see, it is a fairly varied tracklist, including a mix of iconic tunes and some lesser known songs from the artist. It is worth mentioning that ‘Another Part of Me’, as marked by an asterisk above, was limited to only special edition day one copies of the game at selected retailers, therefore, so to speak, for most copies of the game there is a choice of 26 songs. It is also worth noting that despite the advertising campaign saying you can dance and sing like Michael Jackson, only the dancing part is recorded and scored at the end, but by all means sing along as you are dancing – you will often find yourself singing along to the hits involuntarily anyway.
As for the dancing, this is tracked and scored at the end and is the main part of the game. You can dance along to individually created routines for each song, and in the instances of songs that were accompanied by music videos, the same choreographed dance routines seen in the music videos. At the end of the song you are then awarded a points score and a rating out of five stars based on how well you pulled off the moves and moved in time to the song. Each set for the various songs is different, and you will never feel like you are re-doing dance steps from a previous songs. They have all been carefully crafted and choreographed, with a separate animated Michael Jackson figure guiding you through the steps, as well as backing dancers in the cases of songs which include back-up dancers. The animations are very good and look realistic, authentic, and more importantly clearly guide you through the dance moves. They are also entertaining enough to watch, and the game can hold the interest of those watching because for each song on the tracklist the costumes and number of dancers onscreen changes, keeping it fresh and absorbing.
For the songs which include backing dancers, you also get the choice of doing their routines instead of taking the lead as Michael, and as a result the dance routine can vary in difficulty. It varies between tracks anyway, but by giving you a choice between roles within the song, the game also offers variation in the difficulty within a song. For example, on ‘Thriller’, you can choose to play as Michael, hence you will dance the set given the ‘Inhuman’ difficulty ranking, or you can choose to play as a backing dancer and subsequently the difficulty rating is lower, coming in at the ‘Hard’ ranking.
Additionally, there is a ‘Dance School’ mode. This is comprised of videos which you gradually unlock as you are dancing. These videos feature advice and tips from professional dancers in regards to many aspects of dance, such as warming up or technique. This is an added extra which those wishing to further their dancing can benefit from, and those who wish just to have a good time can also benefit from too, as it can help improve your scores in-game or prevent you from pulling a muscle by helping you to warm up.
Overall, Michael Jackson: The Experience is a good game, and although it shares similarities with Just Dance 2, it has clearly been developed in the image of the King of Pop. With a new dance routine for each song and convincing animations of dancers doing the moves with you, it really is an ‘Experience’ as you dance along in the style of Michael Jackson. It is debatable just how much of your movement is being tracked as you are only being sensed by the Wii remote you are holding in your right hand. Arguably, you could achieve similar scores sitting down and flicking your wrist about, but this defeats the point of the game and spoils the fun. In this respect, it may be worth favouring the Kinect version of the game as at least then you know it is scoring you based on your entire body. Obviously, if you aren’t a fan of Michael Jackson it may be worth considering the more generalised Just Dance 2 instead, but there are some classics included in Michael Jackson: The Experience and for a more defined dance style, I’d recommend this game. It offers great entertainment, there’s multiplayer so it would make a good party game if you’ve got the space, and it is also a formidable but enjoyable source of exercise unlike some of the monotonous fitness simulators on the market which put too much of an emphasis on the exercise part of the equation.
Pros
Fun source of exercise
Animations and routines are different every time
Choice of 26 MJ songs including some famous hits
All carefully choreographed in Michael’s style
Cons
Wii version doesn’t track movement particularly convincingly
Instructions along the side can often leave a lot to be desired
This week sees the release of Angry Birds on PSN which will join the growing catalogue of PlayStation Minis on offer. Obviously the game was very successful on iPhone – it even managed to land the award for best iPhone/iPad game in our very own Capsule Computers 2010 Game Awards.
The download will be playable on both PS3 or PSP, but how well will Angry Birds make the tranisition? Anyone picking it up later this week when it is made available will be able to find out.
If you haven’t played it on the iPhone because you don’t have one, then this could definitely be worth thinking about, and even if you have got it on the iPhone, picking it up via PSN isn’t a bad proposition either.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is set to receive its first bout of DLC, a timed-exclusive for Xbox 360, on February 1st.
Entitled ‘First Strike’, the new map pack will include four new multiplayer maps (Berlin Wall, Discovery, Stadium and Kowloon), as well as a new zombie map called Ascension.
Treyarch boss Mark Lamia had this to say about the DLC:
“We’re committed to supporting Call of Duty: Black Ops fans with continuous updates to the game and exciting new content that will keep our community engaged”.
As it is a timed-exclusive, the download content will arrive on Xbox Live first, followed by an arrival on other platforms such as the PlayStation 3 at a later date. So who’s picking it up?
Ladies and Gentle-gamers … News just in from Two Tribes, seems that during the development of a brand new, as of yet unannounced game that could be appearing on the Apple iPhone, employees at Two Tribes have started to exhibit symptoms of what appears to be a new type of addiction…
From what we’ve been told, designers, programmers, game testers and even producers have been caught frantically switching items around. Office supplies, i-devices and even Toki Tori’s eggs have been lost and subsequently found at the most unusual places. Kinda like the same thing that Dylan does with our multiple copies of Barbies Horse Adventures. It’s a little disturbing but now we can safely say that he’s not the only one that has problems.
All we we’ve told is that it is unknown what the long term effects of this addiction are. Apart from having office redecorating effects and being highly time consuming, the addiction does not seem to have any damaging side effects (but I do beg to differ after looking at what Dylan does here in the office). Two Tribe are confident that all subjects seem to derive a healthy dose of pleasure from this ‘compulsive swapping disorder’ resulting in the addiction spreading at a fast pace!
Office cameras in the Two Tribe offices managed to capture footage of an employee suffering from addiction, check out the video below. Should we BE AFRAID !! ?? Or Be PREPARED for some serious fun !!! only time will tell !! We’ll keep you updated once we have more information.
If you happen to be one of the many that own a copy of Mass Effect 2, I am sure you are probably aware of the Cerberus Network. Since the game’s launch in early 2010, the service was pretty much used on the Main Menu to alert players about new updates and DLC that was available. As of January 24th, the Cerberus Network will cease to update as a message was posted today to any players logging in. If this news upsets you by any means, don’t feel down just yet.
This message was also included in that update:
“A week of posts will precede a downloadable content release, and two more weeks will lead up to the release of Mass Effect 3,”
Of course this means we should be seeing one more DLC pack, and I am thinking this will be the DLC that was promised that will bridge the story between Mass Effect 2 to the upcoming third entry in the series. Another thing to note is this only effects the updating news and all content will still be downloadable from the Marketplace like normal.
Either way, I am ready to see Mass Effect 3, though I do need to give it a replay to get a better ending since the content will all carry over, but this news pretty much sets the release date for Mass Effect 3 in stone for later this year and the new content for ME2 should definitely be one to watch for.
