Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Bionic Commando Reloaded for Digital Download
"SAN MATEO, Calif. — January 18, 2008 — Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced Bionic Commando Rearmed™, a makeover of the classic 8-bit game originally released 20 years ago. Bionic Commando Rearmed will be available for digital download from Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PLAYSTATION®Network and PC this spring. This announcement follows the news that Capcom will be releasing an all new next-generation sequel to Bionic Commando® on Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Sony Computer Entertainment’s PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system and PC platforms."Capcom...
This is good news and from the above shots, I think the game looks great. I'm wondering how the game will be delivered on the PC. Will it be Gametap or some other service? I dunno, but here's hoping it won't take too long to get this game on XBLA or PSN. Certification, certification, certification....
Turok Demo impressions from OXM magazine's Demo.
note screenshot from PS3 version
Hey folks, the latest Turok demo is only available to US players through the demo disk that comes packed with every copy of Official XBOX Magazine. This might be the reason it came out in every territory but North America recently on XBOX LIVE Marketplace. But that aside.... To the Demo...
The demo begins with you with a mate in some dark caves trying to find your way out. Your friend is a rather poorly A.I. scripted guy named Slade. I say this because he will often just stand stalk still while dinosaurs attack him and I guess he is waiting for you to shoot them off him. He will do something similar with you. If your attacked, don't count on anyone saving you. The caves are dark and very hard to see too much except in the places where they have dropped lights. This is cool I guess but it's just nothing new.
The dinos are pretty neat in that they are highly detailed and seem to be more intelligent than many of the human A.I. characters in the game. You start the game with two pistols, SMG, a knife, and a bow. You can change these weapons out. All but your bow and knife for others. But the coolest weapons in the game are yet to come.
You make it through the caves, I suggest using your SMGs and if you pick up a shotgun, use that too. There is one instance where using a bow was fun but I'll let you find that out for yourself.
Once your out of the caves you go into the jungle. Here you follow your buddy some more and fight more dinos. Then you hit an area where your ship crashed and you are tasked with killing the most guys as quietly as you can. This means getting up behind them and knifing them in the back. Which has a cool finisher animation.
I got two guys before a bunch of dinos attacked and I had to switch to my bow to be more efficient and more able to kill both guy or dino. After which there was a large group of enemies over the crest of a hill. Your friends get into the fray at this point but they are horrible shots and you have to do most of the killing.
This game seems incredibly fun and there are lots of dinos of different kinds for you to discover, kill, and play with. Also, the multiplayer here looks like it might be fun.
The only problem I see here is repetition. The game just seems like jungle, ship, cave, jungle, and there doesn't seem to be much chance for too much more.
I can't wait to play a final build on February 5th when the game comes out. I would recommend the sneaking killing way; instead of the run and gun. The sneaking is more satisfying. Which could be a problem in the end.
Monday, January 14, 2008
X-Play cooks up new show, Tastes GOOD!
To say that I'd given up on G4 to provide my gaming needs is like saying that the country has given up on going back to the 1960s lifestyle.
But today, things have changed. Today was the first of X-Play's new shows that encapsulate what used to be several half hour shows. With exclusives and such that seem to be on the level of the internet in it's delivery. The only problem they seem to have is their time limit. And hour show would be much better than the current half hour.
I truly love the new format and think they are definitely moving in the right direction. I hope this trend continues and that this isn't the bluster of a new format or G4 trying to be a legitimate gaming source again. Because I would really love to see a least one good show on G4 again.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Unreal Tournament 3 burns while the world looks the other way!
While the whole world is watching the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas. Epic is slowly rolling out the big guns for Unreal Tournament 3. Yesterday the PS3 Mod Tools were released and within the past week a PS3 Unreal Tournament 3 commercial has hit the cable/satellite airwaves.
This is kind of surprising considering the company has been so silent up to this point when it comes to the mainstream media.
The problem and the reason I don't have a pretty little video screen up to show you is that everyone is so focused on CES that no one is even paying attention to these commercials and therefore no pretty internet video to show you.
I love Unreal Tournament 3 but unlike a lot of other games that have come out this holiday season; Unreal Tournament 3 is about as hardcore as a game comes. Even for the PS3 this game really puts the player in a fight for their lives right off and really never lets go. The PC side sports a unix style server window that pretty much keeps everyone who doesn't understand how to do a sever from command line out of the picture. The PS3 version is better with a more graphical configuration and is a little more user friendly. Even if you can't see logs or see games in progress when running a dedicated server.
With the incredibly fast paced nature of the game itself. This kind of thing really doesn't help too much. Also, the complexity of the mod tools that are provided for the PC version are very overwhelming and to most causal and even some hardcore gamers they may see a little too much to handle.
This isn't to say that all this complexity isn't great. But sometimes it is just annoying. Just like the dedicated server madness. The uploading of PS3 mods is insane. The files must be put in a special folder on your removable media and it appears impossible to copy over multiple mods on one piece of removable hardware. This seems like it could have been done better.
The whole PC/PS3 convergence is practically complete and with all this it would have seemed a no brainer to allow PC players to play PS3 players. But due to some technical issues dealing with patches this feature was canned. But it just seems like the whole software package was built with this in mind. This is strange also, because the original ability for PC servers to host PS3 games has also been canned. This was touted all the way up to launch of the game, which makes it's lack seems incredibly strange.
While Epic is still talking about patching Unreal Tournament 3 and all the things that might be possible through those patches. What makes me wonder even more is the upcoming XBOX 360 version. This will be the height of ingenuity if they can bring user created mods to XBOX LIVE for the first time.
While this may appear to be a review of Unreal Tournament 3 it really isn't. I haven't played anywhere near enough of the game to review it. These are just a few things about the game to make people realize what is up with it and hopefully more people will run out an purchase it.
The PC version runs great on most system specs. As long as you purchased your PC within the last 2-3 years you will be able to play Unreal Tournament 3. With the PS3 the graphics are incredible and with mouse and keyboard support the game is virtually the same as the version on the PC. Right now there are more mods on the PC but since the PS3 mod tools came out earlier this week I'm sure there will be plenty of mods converted for the PS3 in the coming weeks.
The game is great and any shooter fan will love the game. Also, for anyone who is playing the game and wants to change their experience. Download the mutator for the 3rd person Cam called, "ActionCam." This can be downloaded for the PC or PS3. This totally changes the game and makes it incredibly cool and makes you want to do some crazy dodging and jumping.
So until my 1,000 dollar PC arrives I will have to give the PS3 version a 9.5/10 and the PC version a 9.8/10 (mod tools son, mod tools...). If you want to see what the next generation of shooters are doing under the radar; check out Unreal Tournament 3.
Monday, January 7, 2008
PS3 Mod tools for the PC are out now for Unreal Tournament 3
You can head over and download the tools from here. Make sure you have patch 1.1 installed. Considering how big a deal this is, the information is kind of hard to find!
Need for Speed ProStreet Review
I've read the terrible reviews of this game. But I really wanted to love this game. I am a BIG racing game fan; as people who read this blog and my site might all ready know.
The game takes a good stab at doing a few new things. First, they take the player and the racing off the street and on to the track. There are plenty to choose from, too bad they all look more or less the same except for the changes in signage. This game really could have benefited from the whole ice level, water level, lava level formula that have worked so well over the years for action games and platformers.
The game allows you to customize your cars to a degree but most of the changes are cosmetic or just plain formulaic like having five different types of tires to choose from that all do the same thing.
The vinyls and other visuals are much more Need for Speed 3 rather than Most Wanted. The autosculpt just doesn't seem to be that big a deal anymore and the damage that has been activated really is nothing more than a nuisance. By the time I'd played a couple hours of the game I was all ready bored of spending petty cash on repairs.
The main career difficulty is a little to easy for anyone who is used to driving games which is certainly a new thing for the Need for Speed series.
The graphics are pretty good especially compared to most other driving games of the non-simulator type out right now. Games like Dirt and Forza certainly look better than Need for Speed Prostreet but they do so much that Prostreet isn't willing to do. The damage models in each work better and certainly effect performance much better.
What could have saved Prostreet were the variety of modes and ways to get through the game and of course battle against the different areas kings of the road. But maybe I lost something in the convoluted non-existent story but the whole thing never really seemed to matter that much and the rewards; at least for the first half of the game seemed kind of pointless.
I would really like to see the series go back to it's Most Wanted past and not continue in this silly street event format. Or at the VERY LEAST create more of an atmosphere around the events. They are barely even window dressing for the game. Every race seems to take place on an overcast day on a more or less road course style track. The drift tracks could be a little bigger and there could be a little more tutorial if the game is going to make you pay for your repairs even if your just restarting the race midway through.
The ironic part of Need for Speed Prostreet is that it is probably the best casually built racing game this year. Problem is that it has no hardcore tuning. Any racing game about tuning that has a drag mode that you cannot change the clutch seems a little insane to me.
The final problem with Need for Speed Prostreet is kind of a amorphous one. The game has no soul. There is really no depth to the style or theme of the game. It is just a whole lot of flash that adds up to very little in the final analysis. There are plenty of things wrong with Need for Speed Prostreet and if it wasn't from the Need for Speed guys doing it it would be just another no name crappy racer. You want white knuckle casual style racing play Burnout Paradise. You want customization, play Forza Motorsport 2. You want arcade racing, play Need for Speed Most Wanted, again. But you won't find any of these experiences in Need for Speed Prostreet, at least not a satisfying one anyway.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Sexy Videogame Land takes on Mario...
During the holidays I tend to do two things more than anything else. Work(my day job is retail) and play games. But I also tend to try and catch up on everything I've put off during busier periods. Such as a growing bookmarks list that is starting to look like some one put a bible on a scroll.
One of those bookmarks was an article that Leigh Alexander wrote about Mario. It's called, "There are No Corners in Space." It is an excellent article and just reasserts my opinion that Leigh is an incredibly talented writer.
What I didn't like about the article is the overall nostalgia and attitude of the of it. The main idea is that 2D games are better than 3D games when it comes to platformers or gameplay based games.
This certainly isn't a new idea. In fact, earlier this month I was reading an article in Play Magazine by Heather Campbell about how platformers and some other games are too talky and have unnecessary tutorials.
But these authors do have understandable and very well thought out opinions. They are not exactly looking at the big picture when they make judgements about games outside of Super Mario Galaxy. The biggest thing about games in general these days is that they are walking the thin line between being completely about the casual experience and a low level or easy hardcore title. What these folks are responding to are the casual elements in their hardcore title. Perhaps you or I don't need tutorials in our platformers and find them annoying. But gamers less familiar with platformers or video games in general may need the tutorials. These are issues that developers need to address and cannot be cast aside when developing for the fastest growing casual game system in the industry.
Also dealing with the 2D to 3D issue; I just don't see it as anything else except that for Leigh, Nintendo hasn't learned how to take advantage of the 3D space in the proper way. She also said she hated the story elements in the game and Heather stated that she hated the hub world concept and would rather not see it at all.
Hub worlds seem to be product of lazy game design but also are necessary for Mario's pick up and play style and the ability to save after each world before going into the next world. Many gamers find the ability to play the game in small bites rather than being required to play for hours at a time to get to a save point.
Certainly there are ways around the Hub world problem and the thrust of the article in that Heather wants all games to have replay and share abilities like Halo 3 is a very cool idea. But I think what both of these journalists do an excellent job explaining is that for all Super Mario Galaxy's greatness it isn't perfect. Which I think I agreed with in print, not too long ago.
Every game can be made better. But in many ways Mario's rise to power has simply been an example for everyone else on how not to do things. But just like in life those other platformers have to learn from someone don't they? I can't wait to see what comes out of their latest lesson.