Publisher Square Enix have announced that Space Invaders: Infinity Gene is now available for download on PS3 via the PlayStation Network, and Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Space Invaders: Infinity Gene offers a new spin on a game that defined gaming upon it’s original arcade release. This latest remake commences with the traditional retro look, but rather imaginatively, as you progress the world around you evolves. As your high-score shoots up the visual style take on all kinds of different forms, developing into a whole array of different futuristic graphical styles.
It’s out now, retailing at $15.95 on PSN and 800 microsoft points on XBLA. Unsure of whether this game’s for you? Take a sneak peek at the game from the trailer below.
Developer: 2k Czech Publisher: 2k Games Genre: Action Platform: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 Released: 08/24/2010
Anyone who played the original Mafia knew what a classic that game was. It was without a doubt one of the most original and immersive PC games for it’s time, and a sequel for the game was always highly anticipated. It took 2K nearly a decade to produce a sequel, was it worth the wait worth it? Keep reading and find out !!
Story
The biggest selling point for the original Mafia was the story, the game had one of the best, and most memorable, storylines in a game, so good that even today is still hard to find something as good in other games.
Mafia 2 honours the original game and brings this amazing storyline into the stage again, with an all-new story and a new set of characters. The story is the classic Mafia theme, killing for money, betrayal, loyalty, and things of that nature. Everything is represented with amazing details and interesting, and sometimes unexpected, turn of events during the course of the game. All the game characters are really likeable. The cast is one of the best you could expect from a game, or even a movie. As mentioned above, the story is still the biggest selling point in Mafia 2. The only bad point about it is its abrupt ending, which make us think that something was cut on purpose, probably with DLC intentions already in mind.
Graphics/Audio
The superb graphics in the Mafia series have always played an important role to immerse you into the game world that is so brilliantly designed, and Mafia 2 couldn’t be any different. The attention to details is something which always impressed me during the game, there’s only a small number of games which take the details as serious as Mafia 2, since every corner in the game is done with an impressive attention to details, from Vito’s house, the city, weapon shops, every place is crammed with details, making us feel like we really are living in that decade. For the PC version 2K have implemented some specific features like physics effects (physx technology), cloth simulation (apex technology), 3D-enhanced technology for those with compatible graphic cards, all things which adds even more to the game.
The attention to detail in Mafia 2 can also be heard from its audio soundtrack as well, the game is fully orchestrated with some truly enjoyable compositions which bring back memories of the original Mafia game. The game uses real music for authenticity of that decade too, a nice plus for the wanted immersion. The voice acting from the characters is also very solid along with the sound effects which are quite good.
Gameplay
Sadly, this is the lowest point about Mafia 2. Why? Well, I can say the gameplay in the game could have been a lot better. The shooting parts in Mafia 2 are really limited, that happens because the game tries to use a rough cover system that really limits the player movements and options. Another low point is the driving sequences, they don’t really take advantage of these moments, and they are not even close to the memorable chase sequences of the original Mafia.
I’m not saying the gameplay itself is that bad, things works “ok” even with these problems, but they could have worked more on it. The city is huge and feels alive but there’s little to do in it, there’s always a feeling that 2K could have done a lot more. The linearity is not really the problem in this case, since the original Mafia was a extremely linear experience as well, but that game used the city a lot better for its mission structure and story development.
Overall
Mafia 2 is not exactly the game everyone was expecting, it’s not a new classic like the original was, the content clearly cut to be sold as DLCs hurts the game a little, as that was exactly what could have helped the game for a better impression. There is always a feeling like something was cut, some weird decisions, 2K could have worked more on the gameplay, and the anti-climax ending leave us somewhat disappointed. Still, I would be lying if i didn’t say my time playing the game was really good, the story and characters are strong and worth the attention, the game kept me constantly entertained. I highly recommend Mafia 2 for players looking for a Mafia or an story-driven game.
Title says it all. SSF4 is getting is getting a number of new alternate outfits for its fighters being released over the next few months. The first pack will be released on XBL and PSN on Tuesday, October 26. No word on price or release dates of further costume packs.
Given the glaring success of SSF4, its no surprise Capcom is making these DLC packs to further extend the life of their game. Stay tuned in the coming weeks/months for more info on related DLC.
Story “Halo: Reach, developed exclusively for Xbox 360 by acclaimed developer Bungie, is the blockbuster prequel to the best-selling Xbox franchise of all time. It represents the culmination of Bungie’s 10 years of experience crafting groundbreaking Halo games that have raised expectations for what can be achieved in a video game.
Experience the fateful moments that forged the Halo legend. This is the story of Noble Team, a squad of heroic Spartan soldiers, and their final stand on planet Reach, humanity’s last line of defense between the terrifying Covenant and Earth. This darker story is echoed by grittier visuals amid a backdrop of massive, awe-inspiring environments. Characters, enemies, and environments are rendered in amazing detail by an all-new engine designed to deliver epic-scale encounters against the cunning and ruthless Covenant.
Once the campaign is over, the battle continues online with an unparalleled multiplayer experience expanding on the award-winning suite of features that helped define the Xbox LIVE experience.” [Via Xbox.com]
Anyone who has read the books, played any Halo game, or even watched the trailers know how this game ends; and many of you even knows how it plays out based off the books. The story puts you into the shoes of Noble 6 as you team up with various members from Noble team and attempt to stop the enemy force that is attacking Reach.
Gameplay SinglePlayer/Campaign
The campaign is comprised of 9 playable levels. Each level has you teamed up with a different Noble Team member. Everything that is familiar from the first three games is back. A deep story filled with regular battles. The formula seems to be tried and true and is still working pretty well, but this time around Bungie decided to add some more for a larger variety of gameplay.
This time around, there is a space level as well as a flying level. The space level has you piloting a space craft as you battle the enemy out in space and attempt to stop the destruction of reach by destroying one of the main ships. The flying level has you flying around a massive level, as you help certain people at certain destinations, and stop at certain buildings to destroy enemy technology. Both levels are a breath of fresh air placed into the campaign.
The rest of the game consists of long levels scattered with battles every so often. The battles in Halo: Reach are massive; however, with you going against small armies. Since you aren’t as strong as Master Chief, the game focuses more on a cover and shoot approach. On the other hand you aren’t as weak as an ODST either, so you can still do damage without worrying about dying on the lower difficulties. Bungie also decided to spice things up by increasing the difficulty even more based on how many players are playing. This may seem like a good idea at first, and for the hardened among you, you might even enjoy it. My friends and I played four player co-op on legendary, and at first we liked the hard battles; however, when a level takes over an hour to complete because of the ramped up difficulty and a massive amount of deaths it all becomes quite boring.
Gameplay MultiPlayer
Multiplayer is where this game shines. You can pretty much do anything in the game with a bunch of friends or just some random people. Although the campaign is currently restricted to being playing only with friends, Bungie will also release this with a matchmaking lobby in the near future. Everything else is available in a matchmaking lobby, and lets you play every aspect of the game with a group of people.
Firefight lets you team up with people and kill waves of enemies. Firefight first showed up in Halo 3: ODST, but is now back and better than ever. The matchmaking lets you play one round with anyone you want with infinite lives. Matchmaking firefight is best if you just want to play a round of firefight without having to set it up; everything is there without the hassle of getting friends and making the setting. On the other hand, if you want the perfect firefight experience, you can now tweak every aspect of the game to do whatever you want; set loadouts, enemies, skulls, anything. These games count as custom matches and can only be played with friends, but these firefight matches also lead to tons of fun (May I suggest infinite rockets, against waves of hunters?)
Multiplayer is back in Halo: Reach and like everything else, it is much better. Although the base frame is still there, the physics have been updated and the rules of engagement have changed. While in Halo 3 most battles ended with punching, Halo: Reach fixes that problem and focuses more heavily on gun fights. Punching is still in the game, but it requires new strategy including the ability to assassinate an enemy from behind which triggers a sweet killing animation as well as an instant kill (much better then teabagging for a “HAHAHA! I got you” insult, in my opinion). New guns and armor abilities have also been added that change up gameplay slightly.
Everything you do in Halo: Reach now earns you credits. These credits are used to rank up, as well as buying new stuff. As you earn credits your rank will increase along side of it, but you can spend the credits whenever you want and still continue increasing your rank without the need to save them. Credits can be used to buy unique armor variants to wear in every aspect of the game. You can even see your custom spartan during the campaign and even cutscenes. It is up to you to determine how cool your character looks as you play. The armor variants are only aesthetic and add no extra armor to defend yourself with, but this keeps the playing field fair no matter how highly ranked your opponents are.
Audio & Graphics
Both the audio and graphics are most notable in campaign. During the campaign is when you actually hear the music or get to watch cutscenes. While the same graphics are present in multiplayer, it is just not the same. As for the audio, you just can’t appreciate it the same in multiplayer because there aren’t any action soundtracks present; just lots of gunfire and the pitiful scream as you kill your opponent.
The audio is awesome. Booming soundtracks pave the way as you traverse the lands of Reach. Every battle is met with an equally epic soundtrack that easily preps you for the fight ahead. Explosions and bullets are each accompanied by an equal sound that makes you feel like you are in danger. I could keep going on and on about the sounds and the soundtrack, but I think everyone gets the hint.
The audio is also quite nice, and extremely pleasant to look at. With a new AI system in place, Bungie has been able to place a massive amount of enemies on the field. By yourself in campaign this is epic, and creates the feeling that you are right in the middle of a massive war; however, in online co-op it creates framerate lagg that takes away from the experience. Even during cutscenes there was a bit of stuttering, and overall it simply took away from the experience. Luckily, the game easily makes up for it in the long run.
Achievements
The achievements in Halo: Reach are extremely easy. They are split between Campaign, Firefight, and Multiplayer Matchmaking. The Campaign achievements consist of beating each level, beating the game on certain difficulties, and a level specific achievements. The only difficult one here is beating the game by yourself on legendary. The firefight achievements can easily be obtained by creating a custom match and just playing for half an hour. The multiplayer matchmaking consists of extremely easy achievements and then a few rank based ones for getting a higher rank. Overall the achievement list is extremely easy, and quite disappointing compared to the achievements of earlier installments of the franchise. The achievement list can be found here.
There is also 5 avatar awards present in the game, some of these may take quite some time to get but overall they are quite easy to achieve.
Carter’s Helmet – Clear a Campaign Mission on Legendary without dying.
Jun’s Helmet– Killed 100 enemies in a row without dying in either campaign or firefight.
Kat’s Helmet– Avenged a teammate’s death in multiplayer matchmaking.
Jorge’s Helmet – Earned a Killtacular in multiplayer Matchmaking.
Emile’s Helmet – Earned a Bulltrue medal in either firefight or matchmaking.
Overview
Halo: Reach is truly Bungie’s swan song. We will miss Bungie as they leave for newer games, luckily we have Halo: Reach to remind us of all the good years we have enjoyed playing Bungie’s Halo games and the many years we will enjoy in the future still playing Halo: Reach. Like the Halo games before it, Halo: Reach will be played for many years to come. While the Campaign is more of a onetime only thing, Multiplayer will be largely populated for a very long time. A lot of people were still playing Halo 2 when those servers were shut down, that is quite a feat. Halo: Reach’s Multiplayer will be strong for many years to come, and is definitely worth a buy for anyone who loves playing online. With all the unlockables, levels to gain, challenges to do, and friends to meet; there will be plenty to do for many years to come.
I give Halo: Reach
The achievements in Halo: Reach are extremely easy. They are split between Campaign, Firefight, and Multiplayer Matchmaking. The Campaign achievements consist of beating each level, beating the game on certain difficulties, and a level specific achievements. The only difficult one here is beating the game by yourself on legendary. The firefight achievements can easily be obtained by creating a custom match and just playing for half an hour. The multiplayer matchmaking consists of extremely easy achievements and then a few rank based ones for getting a higher rank. Overall the achievement list is extremely easy, and quite disappointing compared to the achievements of earlier installments of the franchise.
The Soldier We Need You To Be – 25 – Completed the Campaign on Normal difficulty.
Folks Need Heroes… – 50 – Completed the Campaign on Heroic difficulty.
Gods Must Be Strong – 125 – Completed the Campaign on Legendary difficulty.
A Monument To All Your Sins – 150 – Completed every mission in Halo: Reach alone, on Legendary.
We’re Just Getting Started – 10 – Completed the 2nd mission on Normal or harder.
Protocol Dictates Action – 10 – Completed the 3rd mission on Normal or harder.
I Need A Weapon – 10 – Completed the 4th mission on Normal or harder.
To War – 10 – Completed the 5th mission on Normal or harder.
You Flew Pretty Good – 10 – Completed the 6th mission on Normal or harder.
Into The Howling Dark – 10 – Completed the 7th mission on Normal or harder.
Dust And Echoes – 10 – Completed the 8th mission on Normal or harder.
This Is Not Your Grave – 10 – Completed the 9th mission on Normal or harder.
Send Me Out… With A Bang – 10 – Completed the 10th mission on Normal or harder.
They’ve Always Been Faster – 25 – Cleared the 2nd mission without setting foot in a drivable vehicle.
Two Corpses In One Grave – 25 – Killed 2 vehicles at once with the Target Locator in the 3rd mission.
Banshees, Fast And Low – 25 – Hijacked a Banshee during the Reach Campaign.
Your Heresy Will Stay Your Feet – 25 – Killed the Elite Zealot before he escaped during the 5th mission.
If They Came To Hear Me Beg – 25 – Performed an Assassination against an Elite to survive a fall that would’ve been fatal.
Wake Up Buttercup – 25 – Destroyed the Corvette’s engines & escort in under 3 minutes in the 6th mission on Heroic or harder.
Tank Beats Everything – 25 – Finished the 9th mission on Legendary with the Scorpion intact.
Lucky Me – 25 – Earned a Triple Kill while Jetpacking in Campaign, Firefight or Matchmaking.
KEEP IT CLEAN – 5 – Killed 7 Moa during the 2nd mission of the Campaign.
I Didn’t Train To Be A Pilot – 10 – Killed 3 of the anti-aircraft batteries during the 8th mission.
Doctor, Doctor – 5 – Used a Health Pack to replenish life after taking body damage.
That’s A Knife – 10 – Performed an Assassination on an enemy.
I See You Favour A .45 – 10 – Killed 10 enemies in a Firefight or Campaign session with the M6G pistol.
An Elegant Weapon – 10 – Killed 10 enemies in a Firefight or Campaign session with the DMR.
Swap Meet – 10 – Traded weapons with an AI ally in Campaign.
A Spoonful Of Blamite – 10 – Killed 10 enemies in Firefight or Campaign with a supercombine explosion.
Be My Wingman Anytime – 5 – Let a teammate spawn on you 5 times in an Invasion Matchmaking game.
Yes, Sensei – 10 – Earned a First Strike Medal in a Matchmaking game.
Skunked – 10 – Won a game of Invasion in the 1st phase.
What’s A Killing Spree? – 5 – Earned a Killing Spree in multiplayer Matchmaking.
Crowd Control – 10 – Earned a Killionaire medal in Firefight.
Knife To A Gun Fight – 5 – As an Elite, killed 5 Spartan players in Matchmaking.
When MasterAbbott was at Tokyo Game Show last week he was able to get a look at Bulletstorm in it’s full glory in a video demonstration presented by Epic Games. But now everyone has a chance to see it and it is even better due to the fact that it is now being narrated by the game’s producer Tanya Jessen.
In the video we see the “Bouncer” gun which fires an explosive cannonball at your enemies. That isn’t all though because besides being awesome in it’s own right, there isn’t anything stylish about blowing your enemies up with a cannon right? Well you can also control the ball’s bouncing with kicks and send it plowing into your enemies and earn extra style points. We also see a bit of environmental kills thanks to a falling elevator. Not sure about the rest of you but I can’t wait to see Epic Games new step into a FPS and the very interesting ways you can kill your enemies.
With Fallout: New Vegas only a month from hitting shelves Bethesda has been releasing developer diaries to give everyone a sneak peak of what is different between New Vegas and 3. Obsidian themselves are giving us a peak in this diary of the new Technology we will be seeing as well as the sounds we will be hearing in the Mojave Wasteland.
They cover the fact that many things you will be seeing have either been re-tooled or designed from pre-war technology and has a very unique feel to how guns were handled in Fallout 3. Such as some energy weapons having recharging energy cells as opposed to re-loadable ammo of more understandable guns. Such as a machine gun that launches grenades….. Also we see how the sounds will occur in the desert with a bit of gameplay footage demonstrating the echoes of gunfire in the desert.
Catch the video below and be ready to survive the wasteland again on October 19th in the US and the 22nd everywhere else.
Unfortunately if you have been waiting to play HAWX 2 for the PC instead of picking it up earlier this month on a console system, well you may have to wait quite a bit longer. As it turns out the PC version for Ubisoft’s HAWX 2 will not be released on September 30th.
No release date is currently known though those that have pre-ordered the game have gotten emails from Ubisoft stating that the next release date is November 16th. If this release date is true then the game has suffered nearly a two month delay for unknown reasons; which brings up the question as to why they waited so close to release date to push the release back a month and a half away?
The latest game from Mediatonic, “Who’s That Flying?!” (think about it for a minute) has a release date of October 12, 2010. It will be priced at $5.99 and will be available as a PSP Mini. Players must defend their honor and home world with their laser arm. Mediatonic also produced the well received, “Monsters (Probably) Stole my Princess.” The game will feature 15 levels in it’s original story mode and 25 levels in its challenge mode. Also included are “awesome unlockable extras.”
The critically acclaimed DiRT franchise is getting another sequel in 2011: DiRT 3. Ken Block, DiRT 3 consultant and car driver, stars in the latest video that inspired the use of Gymkhana in DiRT 3. As mentioned in the video, Gymkhana is a discipline that requires drivers to maneuver their cars around numerous obstacles using extreme driving. In DiRT 3, gamers will be challenged to drive their cars in racing arenas and complete races involving props and jumps that are meant to capture the same freestyle expression of Gymkana. DiRT 3 will also have twice as many tracks as DiRT 2 and more than 50 cars. Online multi-player, split-screen play and career mode, as well as the ability to upload your own Gymkhana videos from the game directly to YouTube, will be supported. Finally, players can also drive Ken Block’s Ford Fiesta 2011 as seen in this video:
