In case you didn’t know, Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires as well as the upcoming Halo Wars, is closing shop soon. This announcement came rather suddenly, and makes a few wonder what’s going to happen to any future titles of those properties.
With this announcement, some information is starting to leak about old projects that got the axe at Ensemble, too, including a Halo MMO that was in development until last year.
While I have yet to play the first Resistance game (I know, I know), what I’ve seen of the second one looks like a good time. After watching the multiplayer at PAX and seeing clips from E3 that showed off campaign mode, I’m getting more and more excited for the game.
For those of you, who, like me, go nuts over any bit of the news you see regarding your most desired games, I thought I’d post a link to 10 Resistance 2 videos released by Sony and Insomniac. It even includes the first footage of the co-op mode, which looks great. This game is dropping on November 4. Is anyone else looking forward to it?
Source- Joystiq
Wow, the possibilities just seem endless when I look at LittleBigPlanet. Take this new video, for instance, where a student re-created a Colossus from Shadow of the Colossus in LBP as a level. When I see stuff like this, it makes me both tingle with excitement and ashamed of my own lack of creativity.
This falls under the category of the oh-so-rare “good” WTF. Nintendo just put up a new Wario video on YouTube, and I demand that you go watch it. It’s a very clever piece of marketing from Nintendo, and I admit to giving out a “WTF” once I saw that something wasn’t quite what it seemed.
Normally, I would just embed this, but in this one instance, it would kind of ruin what Nintendo’s got going on. So go ahead. Go check out Nintendo’s YouTube Wario video. You won’t regret it.
Here is a Halo 3 machinima short from TheDuoGroup, who I happen to be a fan of. They also created a Metal Gear Solid animated short which circulated around the Internet a few months back, and I was very impressed by it.
This new piece is short and simple, but has some very clever visual elements that you don’t often see in Halo machinima, or any machinima at all, really. Great use of some animated elements, and it features a song by Beck, so you know it’s gotta be good.
If you’re unaware the upcoming PS3 game Heavy Rain, by Quantic Dreams, you should familiarize yourself with it. From the makers of Indigo Prophecy, it is an incredibly cinematic game that lets the character play it almost like an interactive movie, and from the looks of it, is going to be something special.
One interesting thing, though: the creator, David Cage says that you can even continue to play the game after the main character dies.
Last year, Ubisoft showed off some early gameplay footage of Splinter Cell: Conviction. This title didn’t play like other entries into the series, which typically have Sam Fisher infiltrate terrorist cells and do his best Solid Snake impression as he downed bad guys in stealth. No, Conviction instead has Sam Fisher on the run, doing his best to avoid cops in public as he is a wanted man.
Since that early preview, nobody’s really heard much about the game, until Chris Easton of Ubisoft recently gave a few more tidbits about the game’s progress. Apparently, they had some bumps along the way.
So there was a pretty awesome goof-up at Malaysia’s PS3 launch. Apparently, someone missed the memo that this was not, in fact, Nintendo, and blasted a legendary tune as the Sony exec marched onto the stage.
Ouch. Classic and priceless.
A post by a developer over on the Playstation forums dropped this bombshell recently: when LittleBigPlanet launches, you won’t be able to create levels via online multiplayer. Wtf?
Color me puzzled. You figure with the launch of one of Sony’s biggest games of the year, they would have their act together, or rather, they would put the pressure on Media Molecule to get their act together. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t online co-operative level creation one of THE reasons to get this game?
Continue reading Today’s WTF: No LBP Online Creation at Launch?
I don’t do too well with scary things. Ask any of my friends, and they’ll tell you that I scream like a little girl and cover my ears during most horror movies (or games). Needless to say, I have never been a fan of the survival-horror genre for this reason, though I will give grace to things concerning Zombies.
Dead Space, however, combines survival-horror with science fiction, and it looks delicious. I’m particularly intrigued by the unique lack of a HUD, and the UI is incorporated into the environment, really making the gameplay experience feel like a literal camera attached to the hero. It just oozes atmosphere, and not all games have that. Plus, strategic dismemberment just looks insane.
Just a heads up to those of you in Canada. It appears that Future Shop, a Canadian retailer, is bundling Gears of War, Force Unleashed and 60GB XBox 360 models for 299.99, which isn’t bad at all, if I say so myself.
It seems that since the 360 price drop, these kinds of deals are popping up left and right. If you’re thinking about getting a 360 and live up in the great north, it might be the time to take the plunge, so to speak.
Source- Future Shop
To me, one of the cool aspects that hasn’t been talked about in Left 4 Dead is the “Director”, an AI system that creates encounters for you as the game goes, meaning no 2 single-player (or co-op) playthroughs might be the same.
In versus mode, this changes. You play as a zombie, which makes you the “Director”, designing the campaign experience for your friends, in a sense. You can even call other zombies to your aid to battle your human foes. A new video interview has appeared on the webz, highlighting some of these features.
Ok, this one is for Eddy and all those other Achievement Whores out there who are anxious for Fable 2 to come out and hopefully live up to the hype it has generated. I think it looks like a fun game, but time will tell. Time and fanboys. Full list of Achievements after the jump. Continue reading Fabulous Fable 2 Achievements
Being a lover of all things Final Fantasy, I have decided to do the first in what will be a series of posts about this revered franchise. First, my credentials: I played the very first Final Fantasy when I was 9 years old. I have played every single version that was released in the United States within a month of its release.
Apparently my XBot is showing today, as I bring even more news from the MS front. Once again, Gamerscore Blog has updated this week with some new info about the features of the upcoming new XBox Experience, an update to the 360’s dashboard.
This week covers the creation of Avatars for you to use as part of your Gamertag, and I have to say that I like some of the options. While there are lots complaining about them being glorified Miis, that is 100 percent correct. However, Nintendo hates all things related to the Internet, so the Miis just live in loneliness on your Wii. Here, they go out into the wild and flourish.
I have a weird love/hate thing with “best of” gaming lists. They’re addictive as anything to read, but a lot of times you want to just slap the writers of them in the face for the way they have ranked the games. While a lot of that is expected and just typical subjectivity, sometimes dudes just get it wrong.
Take GamePro, for instance. While I’m sure they mean well with their new “Best of XBox 360” list, they are sadly, horribly, woefully misguided in the way they’ve placed the appropriate titles. There should be terrible punishments for people that are this far off.
Wow. Two years ago, Level-5 teased us all with an incredible new game called White Knight Story, which looked like it could become THE reason to own a PS3.
They even released a video preview of the game that completely blew my socks off and had me drooling like a maniac for a PS3, way back when I wasn’t even remotely interested in the system. While little bits of info have come out, the game has mostly stayed quiet and kept to itself.
No, not the vaporware Duke Nukem. I’m talking about the flesh-and-bone older brother, Duke Nukem 3D, which is coming to XBox Live Arcade later this month. A new trailer hit earlier this week, and man, I’m actually really pumped for the release.
I remember playing this thing on the N64 with my brother, and we would just do the deathmatch stuff with our friends all day long. Not to mention that this new version comes packed with 8 player multiplayer over XBL, but also the ability to save and share clips and even rewind it when you die, a la Prince of Persia. This is going to rule. Now if only they could get Goldeneye on XBLA…
As we all know, the world of video game movies has been a tough one for studio execs to crack. Nearly every movie based on a video game has been wretched, and it just doesn’t seem to show any signs of letting up.
However, it seems that Avi Arad, one of the bigwigs responsible for Marvel’s recent comeback, has optioned the rights from EA to produce a movie based on the RPG Mass Effect. Pretty wild.
For many, the name Mario is synonymous with platform gaming and console gaming as a whole. Nintendo’s mustached mascot has become a global icon over the past couple of decades, and his self-titled platformers seem to show no signs of slowing down any time soon.
With the release of each successive proper Mario title (let’s just exclude Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Sunshine, shall we?), Nintendo has found ways to up the ante, building on the formula and shaking it up enough to make it new and exciting.
SMB3 added super suits and a huge world where players could explore new areas by choice, Super Mario World expanded the exploration and included new platforming elements, Super Mario 64 blew open the Mushroom Kingdom into three dimensions and Super Mario Galaxies stretched those dimensions upside down and around curved planetoids.
