Activision has had their fun on XBLA with a 50% off sale. It will soon be Electronic Art’s turn. Starting on January 18, 2011, many of the DLC packs from the hottest EA franchises will be on sale. Arcade games will also be on sale. The whole list is below. Get them before the 24th of January.
A new trailer has been released for the highly anticipated turn-based/real-time strategy game, Total War: Shogun 2. Bring to light new details on the game’s campaign and showcasing new gameplay features. The team behind the Total War series, The Creative Assembly has used their wealth of development experience and new ideas to make Shogun 2 as revolutionary as their first title proved to be when it was released in 2003. Total War: Shogun 2 is set to raise the bar in strategy games once again using innovative gameplay combining real-time strategy and turn-based strategy into one.
Total War: Shogun 2 release on to the PC on March 15, 2011.
Game Name: Killing Floor
Platforms: Pc, Mac (via Steam)
Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Developer: Tripwire Interactive
Genre: Co-op survival horror action fps
Release Date: 14 may 2009
Rating: M – ESRB
Price: $19.99 (USD)
I am sure if most of you reading this have played any of the Call of Duty zombie mini-games or left for dead 1 & 2, you should feel familiar with this title as Killing Floor on the surface appears to be a cross between these two series’ zombie multiplayer modes. Killing Floor was originally a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 before any of these games were released though later became a full game. How does the final release stand up to those other titles in this day and age? Here is my review for the Killing Floor.
Story
Killing Floor doesn’t feature much of a story, the back story is rather generic, failed military experiments go wrong and now zombies roam the streets and you and your time simply have too kill every zombie in an area of England. Not a great story but other then the loading screens you don’t see it because this game doesn’t have a story mode and is just about killing zombies.
Gameplay
There is one game mode in the Killing Floor. Each match you or your team select your perk and get ready to start fighting. The combat is separated by waves that grow increasingly difficult until the final wave, where you fight one zombie who is a challenge by himself because he has the abilities of almost every other zombie and often calls in more zombies, between waves you will have too go to one of the trader points and spend the money earned by shooting and killing zombies on weapons, ammo and armor which are a necessity for your survival in the later rounds. The game continues till all players die in one round or the final round is completed.
The combat itself is very addictive. You don’t get a cross-hair (like most games of today in the genre) and instead have to look down the barrel of your gun to line up a shot. If you shoot of the head of a zombie they can no longer use their special ability (all zombie types have different abilities) which makes things much easier as the zombie will grow much weaker and slowly die. The zombies come in all different types and most are slower than you but will come from all directions so you must constantly keep an eye on the horde at all times so paying attention to your surroundings at all times is very important. The most dangerous ability goes to the clot. This zombie makes up the majority of the horde and has it’s name because if it attacks you then you are rendered immobile so long as it has its head and the rest of its body. This is a core danger because the sheer abundance of these enemies means you will often have to kill several of these things before you can escape.
The soldiers are all equipped with one weak handgun, a weld to hold doors shut, a very weak knife, some grenades, and a high tech reusable syringe that allows you to heal you and your team mates with whatever dangerous situation that may apply. The weapons all look, feel and sound unique and many feature an alternative ability such as a torch or switching from semi automatic to fully windows.
There are things make this game standout as oppose to the aforementioned games, those being the cash system and the biggest difference, the perk system. There are seven perks and each player can select one at a time, gaining benefits that range from being able to carry more weight or certain weapons being stronger. There aren’t many ranks for the perks but they require a lot of time and effort to level up. For instance, doors can be welded to 100%. Each percent represents one point, you get the idea. At the highest levels perks can allow players to spawn with extra weapons making for an awesome reward to come off a players hard work.
Now I did enjoy this game but it does have a few flaws. One of these flaws is the respawn time. The time spent after dying, waiting to re-spawn can feel like an eternity. Another is the cash system and how it can cripple your enjoyment a bit with having to get all of your weapons again in much later rounds. The only other issue in gameplay was the lack of other modes but I don’t mind it as there are heaps of different maps along with the different strategies different teams use so the true length of enjoyment is really determined by the player who is behind the controls.
Audio and Graphics
While Killing Floor doesn’t quite fit in with today’s visual standards, I do feel that many of the players who do not quite have a decent video card will not find this a problem as if you can run titles like Unreal Tournament 4, you should be good to go. This also makes for a more retro feel to the game as well as of course more players on board on the servers.
The game’s voice actors are all distinctly British and often the player’s character will have some silly lines that aren’t very humorous and can kill the some of the excitement while players roll their eyes and move on. As I mentioned, the guns and Zombies do sound great with all the appropriate groans and blasts that can easily get you to immerse yourself in Zombie killing mode.
Killing Floor is a great game and provides awesome fun when played with several friends and is the best multiplayer fps zombie mode I have seen to date. While it is just a take on a zombie killing mode, the cooperative multiplayer and huge online population keep Killing Floor updated and interesting the whole way through.
Pros:
The combination of awesome combat and lots of gore not only matches all the features in some other zombie games but improves on them along with the perk system which adds progression outside of each match along with the ability to run this game on most computers.
Cons:
Due to it just being spawned off a Zombie killing mode, there isn’t a whole lot of depth.
Blood-thirsty Mortal Kombat fans will be excited as Warner Brothers Interactive have released a new story trailer, this time for the character Mileena. The trailer shows a much darker, twisted side of the female warrior, showing a slight insight to her insane mind as well as new footage.
The video also features the song “Mileena’s Theme”, by DJ/Producer Tokimonsta and will be featured on an album called “Mortal Kombat: Songs Inspired by the Warriors” from WaterTower Music and Teenage Riot Records, which comes out in April. “Mileena’s Theme” is the first single off the album, and it can be downloaded here via iTunes and Amazon.
No release date revealed yet for the franchises’ next instalment, but it has been announced we can expect to be ripping out kidneys via x-ray moves and preforming fatalities early this year. With the album coming out in April as well as having this in mind, one could speculate that the game could possibly be released in April if the cd and game are to be released along side each other, but we can only guess at this point as nothing is confirmed.
If that’s not enough to get you excited, a few sexy renders of Mileena and Kitana have be released for the fans, previously exclusive for magazine publications. Check them out as well as the trailer below!
James Bond has had many men fill his shoes. And there have almost been just as many video games to match. Although the video game equivalent of the espionage master has had some rough spots, reports are coming in that another game starring 007 will be released to coincide with a new movie. The movie is rumored to star Daniel Craig, actor in the previous two movies in the franchise (and arguably some of the best as well.)
It is unclear which developer under Activision is creating the game. As you know, they have the all inclusive rights to all things in the ‘shaken, not stirred’ universe. Currently, Raven Software has taken the top spot in the rumor department as the ones who will take the controls of the game. However, you can be sure that Bizarre Creations will not do it, as they are currently on the auction block after developing the last Bond game, Blood Stone.
EA has had some great games and has had some great years but this year looks better then ever, the first four titles are already tempting but how much more does EA have to offer?
18/1/2011Mass Effect 2: (ps3) Biowares extremely popular Xbox 360 and PC exclusive series comes to ps3 or at least the second installment but packed with a bit of bonus DLC and it runs on the same engine as the next installment! If you haven’t already got it on Xbox then this should already be a must buy.
28/1/2011 Dead Space 2:(Xbox 360, Ps3, PC) The first game was great and the promise for the second game is multiplayer along with a whole new story that continues the already great story of the original Dead Space, at least download the demo and give it a go.
22/2/2011 Bulletstorm: (Xbox 360, Ps3, PC) This game didnt look like a game I would get but then I learnt a little more, this lets you kick butt (literally) and many other things. I think this game will be a standout title but see for yourself, just check the ESRB rating until the demo is released.
25/3/2011 Crysis 2:(Xbox 360, Ps3, PC) the first game was notorious for its high system requirements for the different settings, so high in fact, that it was only found on high end pcs. The first game was surprisingly more then a pretty face, the combat was fun and challenging, I hope this game retains the same fast paced combat but tweaked to perfection.
March/2011 Rango:(DS, Ps3, Wii, Xbox 360) Another game made from a film. The movie is voiced by Johnny Depp and is the tale of a chameleon who becomes some kind of hero. If the past has taught as anything is that great games made as a tie in of a recent film are extremely rare. Hopefully this one will be different but the verdict is still out on this upcoming title.
29/3/2011 Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters: For those of you who don’t know, the masters is a golf tournament and one of the biggest. Considering the last game won the award of the best individual sports game at the Spike video game awards and this game boast more upgrades, also notable is that Ps3 users have move surport.
Q1/2011 Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath: (Ps3) Does anyone else remember any of the Oddworld games? This is a remake of the classic game that shares the title for Ps3, expect a lot more news to come but no release date has been set and if we are unlucky this is just an update to the graphics but it could be a must have game for Ps3 owners.
Q1/2011 SHIFT2 Unleashed: (PC, Ps3, Xbox360) A sequel to Need for Speed: Shift could make a nice addition to your collection, expect a lot more news to come.
21/4/2011 Portal 2: This game is to anyone who played through the first Portal game a must, and if valve was serious when it said that portal was just an experiment rather then a full game and that this is a real game then I strongly advise picking up this game as soon as you can. The original game, for those of you who haven’t played it, was a single player game that used a portal gun to create puzzles that blew the minds of many people and this time around there is co-op.
Spring 2011 Wildlife: Forest Survival: (Ps3, Xbox 360) In most games you play as a human, in Wildlife: Forest Survival you don’t, instead you can play as one of four animals in a forest. This game seems a bit ambitious but if the controls are fun and the rest of this game works then it will definitely be among the games you remember from 2011. The four animals you play as are: a rabbit, fox, hawk and gator, the best bit is that this game features PvP multiplayer.
Christmas 2011 Mass Effect 3: (PC,Ps3,Xbox360) When Mass Effect 2 came out, some people weren’t happy with the huge yet subtle changes and for some those were the selling points of the game, with the way the series is going this game could be even more RPG lite but could be even bigger and better then it’s predecessor but is the last game in the series.
29/12/2011Microbots: (Ps3, Xbox 360) Microbots has some very nice ideas, you play as a robot that is a small as a body cell that is killing diseases in the body, the human body. The levels are said to be dynamic which could potentially be a feature that makes this game a gem or this game could just be great or just mediocre depending how this feature and others are used to make this game different to other games of this kind. It will be on the PSN and Xbox live arcade.
2011 Alice: Madness Returns: (PC, Ps3, Xbox 360) EA has yet another sequel, this game is the sequel to American McGee’s Alice, a darker reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. Expect more details to come but this game is unlikely to be a huge success that you find in almost every house but has fans from the original 2000 game so it will meet an audience.
2011 Battlefield Play4free: (PC) This isn’t the only free to play Battlefield game there is, Battlefield Heroes is like the other games but features a micro transactional system and an art style that is slightly reminiscent of Team Fortress 2. As this game is set to be realistic in appearance, my prediction is that it will be very simular to Battlefield Heroes but it might be completely different within the restrictions of a battlefield game offcourse.
2011 Darkspore: (PC) Spore suffered heavily from high expectations but Darkspore seems like a great new approach to the series. The title says it all, this game is NOT spore but instead a darker version of the basic idea, this game is actually an RPG that sees you collecting creatures and upgrades for them but doesn’t allow the same customization as Spore, you control a team of creatures and use their abilities in a top down view to collect loot and progress in the game. It looks promising and could be a great RPG or not very good at all, my bet is that it will be a fun RPG that will have much success.
Spring 2011 Fancy Pants Adventures: (Xbox360, Ps3) I have played the original version of this game, the flash version. It is a fun and imaginative game that you should try online, I don’t know what will be changed to merit this game a place on the Xbox live Arcade or the PSN, it could be the same game that is now on the internet or it could be a really good version that has had content added to it to earn what ever price it will be at, if it does that then it will be a great game but for now try the flash one here.
2011 Gatling Gears: (PC, Ps3, Xbox 360) Gatling gears is a top down, dual analogue shooter which many of you may not know what that means. In this top down game you use one analogue stick to move and the other to aim. This game will appear on the PSN and Xbox live arcade, it has yet to announce any information that will really excite us but it is still a while off release
Fall 2011 Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: (PC, Ps3, Xbox 360) The staff list of this game features some pretty sweet names including the person leading this games development, Ken Rolston, lead designer of elder scrolls 3 and 4 which is pretty good considering this is also and open world RPG. The game is yet to display much of a reason to count down the days till it’s released though has boasted about having the standard stuff, “rich universe” “fluid controls”. This game could be anything from just boringly generic to highly polished standout RPG action but with it’s staff it is unlikely to do horribly. I hope this game announces what it will bring to the genre otherwise it will have to rely on how well it can improve on gameplay from simular games.
2011 The Sims 3: (3ds) I have no idea how this game will end up, the amount of ports of the classic PC series is astonishing, my biggest fear is that it will only be an update to the previous DS Sims games and it’s only great feature would then be the 3D but it might bring something new or be a better port then it’s predecessors.
2011 The Sims 3: Outdoor Living Stuff: (PC, MAC) The Sims 2 had made “stuff” expansions but they weren’t major expansions, maybe there will be another take on the whole “stuff” expansion but if not then I hope this is a cheap expansion or pack a lot of stuff.
Summer 2011 WARP: (Ps3, PC, Xbox360) A PSN Xbox live arcade game that is a top down sci-fi stealth action game with puzzles, traps, a supposedly distinctive art style and levels it claims to be addicting. This game sounds like it has the basis to be good fun but I don’t yet know enough to say how well it could go.
Those are EA’s games for this year, which ones have got you excited?
The Sly Collection Developer: Sucker Punch Publisher: Sony Platform: PlayStation 3 (Review) Release Date: November 16th, 2010 Price: $39.99 US, £29.99 UK, $59.99 AUS
Overview:
Ever wish for the old days in gaming when not everything was about the best graphics, and cel-shading was just becoming a hot trend? Then The Sly Collection may just be the thing that will scratch that itch of yours. The Sly Cooper games were some of the best platforming games that you could find on the PS2 and have aged so well that Sony decided to put them all together into one package. Plus with the upgrade to HD the gang is going to look better than ever. Is it enough to justify a new purchase, or a purchase at all for newcomers?
Story:
The storyline varies depending exactly which game you are playing as they do not share consecutive storylines but overall each one shares similarities with one another. Throughout the games you play as anthropomorphic animals in the form of Sly Cooper in every one of the three games. In the last two games you will be given the option to play as Bentley the turtle and Murray the hippopotamus.
Each of these characters has a specific skillset that the crew uses to advance the storyline, though on average you will be using Sly to sneak around, steal things, and handle the bulk of the work. Plus you will constantly be pursued by the cop Carmelita Fox who serves mostly as an antagonist but also love interest to Sly.
A quick rundown of each storyline will find players of the first game controlling Sly Cooper in his quest to retrieve the Thievius Raccoonus from Clockwerk and the Fiendish Five who all have pieces of the book and serve as the main antagonists. The second game Band of Thieves will place Sly against the Klaww Gang in their quest to reassemble the villainous Clockwerk and bring the mastermind back to life. With the final game we see the team expanded as Sly and the Gang look to crack open the Cooper Vault. Each of these story lines are very unique and with the many venues you’ll be visiting each is very refreshing and even though you can experience each story back to back there is enough variety that you will not find anything stale.
Graphics:
Sly Cooper and the rest of his gang have always looked great, you can revisit the classic PS2 titles and still be more than happy with the way that the game looks. With the transition to HD the gang looks even better. The cel-shaded graphics that Sly Cooper sports are some of the best that you can find, with the upgrade comes a crisper picture, smoother character design and even better looking characters.
Each area that you visit as you travel across the world feels quite life-like, if life was overlaid with a cartoon. The streets of Venice, the dark dank jungle, an airship flying through the sky, or even snow covered mountains all are on the places that you will be visiting with Sly and the gang. These areas are very complex and quite beautiful to explore as you search around them.
Now the Sly Cooper games for the PS2 took advantage of old school 3D graphics. This means that when you purchased one of these games they often came with red and blue 3D glasses that could be worn to produce the 3D effect. The Sly Collection sports the more modern 3D effects that utilize the new 3D TVs that are on the market today. I noticed that with 3D mode on the images were darker which required an increase in brightness but otherwise provided an immersive experience.
Audio:
Those who have played the original Sly Cooper games will immediately recognize the voices of Sly, Bentley, Murray, and even Carmelita as all the voice work is the same as the original titles. The voice acting is very memorable and fans of the series are coming back to exactly what they know and love. The characters slide slightly into your average character archetypes such as Bentley having a more nasally sounding voice but they settle well enough without being generic.
Gameplay:
Each Sly Cooper builds gameplay around the fact that Sly is a master thief and therefore must sneak around and avoid open confrontation. Now stealth games were not new when the original Sly Cooper was released but they took an entirely new spin on the mechanic by stripping the complexities away and allowing players to venture around self-contained levels and gather collectibles. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus epitomized the stealth gameplay by making it so Sly would die simply from one touch by an enemy and provided linear storyline progression.
Now the linear storyline never did change as the games were developed, but one thing did. In Sly 2: Band of Thieves there is no longer a one hit kill system, but a health bar that allows Sly to be damaged a few times before failing his mission. Also introduced is the fact that you can now play certain levels as Sly’s allies Bentley and Murray for a variety of different missions. Sly Cooper himself is still the star however as he has noticeably more time and care placed into his missions than the other two.
The self-contained levels return including a money mechanic. The money mechanic is used to buy different equipment that Sly, Bentley and Murray can use to help them beat/avoid guards and is a nice touch to mix up the monotony that players may experience. The reason I mentioned monotony is because there will be lots of time in Sly 2 where you will be forced to run back and forth from your main base to switch characters around which would have been easier to do on the fly.
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is extremely similar to Sly 2 in most regards but has seen an update in overall gameplay and provides even more diverse missions to mix things up. Also with players going around the world to gather a large crew together there are plenty of playable characters that join the scene and flesh out the band of three. Again collectibles return in the form of bottles and the levels are still self-contained.
Now you may notice that the box up there says PlayStation Move Compatible, the reason for this is that there are certain additions to Sly Cooper that have Move support. Thankfully the Move use was not forced into the game and is not required in the slightest. If nothing else some players may not even notice that there is Move support within the game due to its implementation.
The Move is usable on four brand new mini-games that were created for the Move and take advantage of the Move’s capabilities. The mini-games are all more or less arcade games styled after shooting galleries as you attempt to reach the highest score you can. These additions at best are worth a small distraction but nothing more. There could have been more Move support added in, but as it stands the Move Compatibility is just taking advantage of the hype.
Overall:
If you have never played a Sly Cooper game before then there is literally no reason to not pick up this game collection. If you have played them before then this is a great chance to get the remastered version of each game all for a convenient price and in one package. The PS3 trophies for each game are individual and quite easy to collect; especially considering the fact that each Sly Cooper game looks even better than you will remember and has lost absolutely nothing in translation.
Title name: BUZZ! The Ultimate Music Quiz
Platform: Playstation 3
Developer: Relentless Software
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre: Party
Release Date: Oct 22 2010 (EU), Jan 14 2011 (US)
ESRB rating: T or 3
Have you ever tried out to be on one of your favorite game shows? You have to send in an application and/or essay of why you should be on this game show. Millions of people send in one of these. We all hope that ours gets picked to move further down the process of game show glory. Why bother doing that when you can just play a game on your Playstation 3?!
The BUZZ series has been one of the few game show games to have more than 10 games and it has been five years strong. The orginal first BUZZ was just a simple music quiz. For the fifth anniversary, Relentless Software is going back to its roots. BUZZ! The Ultimate Music Quiz comes back with more customization options, better questions, and new Playstation Move functionality that makes it one of the best BUZZ games out.
Gameplay
The game play is the most similar to Jeopardy. There are panels that have general themes on them. Choose the theme you want to answer questions on and it goes from there. This is where your basic knowledge of random things comes into play. There are twists to the gameplay though. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but they make the game to be a blast with other people. The questions have a lot of variation to them. I found myself scratching my head quite a bit trying to figure out where they got this question, and how I am supposed to find the answer. Some of the music clips where not original songs or had no words to them. I would have no clue what the song was, then I would find out I knew exactly what the song was. The format is really simple and easy to use. I have not played any BUZZ games before this one, but from the research I have done, this format has been slightly improved on.
One minus to the game, however, is that the game is quite hard to play with only one person. I rarely have many friends over to my house. I play alone and by myself most of the time. Even though this is meant for party play, what if somebody wanted familiarize themselves with the game before people came over? The game just does not cater well to being by yourself. It does have online play though. I found that I was waiting quite a while to find some players online sadly. It is a nice feature to put in; if there were a bigger online community, it would be great.
The Playstation Move sections are fun, but not integrated with the whole game. They are mostly like any other Move game out there; A section of mini games that are fun for about an hour. But, it adds new ways to answer the questions. Instead of just pressing a button, your Move controller will act like a magnet while you answer questions. As mentioned, these were amusing but not very deep.
Another new feature is the ablilty to make your own BUZZ quiz and publish it online for other people to download and play. While you are able to buy new quizzes and sets of question from the Playstation Store, downloading other peoples quizzes or making your own is a great way to extend the life of the game and you do not want to shell out for the extra questions.
Audio and Visual
It is not all about the gameplay though! It is also about the funny and cool way to customize your characters. You can use your Playstation Eye to capture a picture of your face and put it on your avatar. Your face can then be pasted on TV screens, stretched and squeezed, and many other different options. The heads have the look and physics of paper. It is quite funny to see what the game does to the faces. Another cool feature is you can add custom sounds to the press of your buzzer.Using the Mic on your Playstation Eye you can record any sound you want and it will loop back every time you press the buzzer.
The host BUZZ has been using since day one is still here. While he may have new lines for the game, it gets a little old. The host’s punchlines cycle pretty frequently. I would hear the same lines in a single quiz. You can choose to turn his banter off so that is a plus. The backround music it plays is also pretty goofy. They are the type of tracks that would belong to a game show. You can also decide to turn off the music.
Overview
Compared to the greatest game show on earth, BUZZ! The Ultimate Music Quiz would not stand up. It is a great game for you and three of your friends to gather around the TV and have some fun. Extensive amount of questions and greatly customizable options make this game a blast to play. The option to play alone and more implementation of the Move controller would have put this game over the top. It essentailly is just another BUZZ quiz game though.
Eager to learn just what you will be using to get all of those skillshots and rack up the points in Epic and EA’s upcoming Bulletstorm? Then you are in luck because in the newest dev diary for Bulletstorm we are given a nice detailed explanation for many of the weapons we will be seeing. Cliff Bleszinski, Tanya Jessen and John Liberto give us the rundown of a variety of weapons plus talk a bit about multiplayer.
Apparently when the demo for Bulletstorm drops on January 25th we’ll be able to play the gameplay mode called Echo which will give you just a taste of the epic killing that you will experience when the game drops on February 22nd. I think out of all the guns they talk about my favorite is the Flail Gun, even though the one-liner attached to said gun is a bit of an epic flail.
Simplicity can sometimes be the best thing you can ask for. Sure some people enjoy the more complex mechanics such as alchemy and weapon crafting, but what if you want to have an easy and enjoyable experience? That is what Two Worlds II is aiming for. In the latest developer diary released by TopWare we hear from Creative Director Scott Cromie about just how complex or simple Two Worlds II can actually be.
From what was shown in the video we see how much has changed since the first Two Worlds. Practically everything that was customizable before has been redone and made easier to understand. Plus players can also just ignore the different customization options and go through the game normally if they wish to by making new potions and gear readily available as they advance through Two Worlds II. Don’t take my word for it however, take a look at the video below and catch Two Worlds II when it releases on the PC and Xbox 360 on January 25th.
