Ever since the release of the PSP there have been all sorts of rumors buzzing around that Microsoft would eventually create a hand-held Xbox system for the gaming world to enjoy. At games-com, our prayers have been answered…well…sort of.
Continue reading ‘Xbox LIVE Mobile’
Assassin’s Creed II was a hugely enjoyable game for me – one of the best sandbox style titles I’ve played. Unlike it’s predecessor, the game was chock full of things to do and places to see – taking the original concept and melding it into something vastly more exciting. Truth be told, I’ve still yet to get the DLC, since I’d long since stopped playing since it’s release – but I could quite happily say I was satisfied with my purchase and even managed to get my first Platinum Trophy by tracking down every last feather in the beautiful Italian regions of Venice, Florence and Tuscany. It’s rare I say that a sequel surpasses a predecessor in every way – but this time I think they managed it.
The upcoming release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood this November did get me wondering what exactly we should expect. Firstly – the game is not deemed a true numbered “sequel”, secondly - it’s only been a year since the release of Assassin’s Creed II, as opposed to the two-year gap between the first two titles, and thirdly - I haven’t noticed nearly as much advertising for the latest installment. It’s perhaps because they’ve simply decided to follow the plot of the same character that they have made these choices (akin to Final Fantasy X-2), but the reluctance to number the title does make me wonder if the game will feel more like an expansion than a true sequel. So what do we know? I’m here to tell you what I can.
Continue reading ‘Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’
Often when playing a game you’ll find that you’ve played something in a similar vein – while the actual engine, plot and characters may change the general ideas are the same – be it a hack n slash, a racing game or a shooter. However, once in a while a developer – in this case 505 Games – tries to create something unique that hasn’t been done so many times before. Obviously this can be a risk – as you can’t guarantee what people will think. Taking such a chance, 505 Games brings us a new experience, in the form of Naughty Bear. Continue reading ‘Naughty Bear’
It was a fair while ago when MGS: Rising was announced, with the news that it would be the first Metal Gear Solid title to go multi-platform – perhaps due to the amount of Xbox 360 owners who hoped Metal Gear Solid 4 would eventually be ported. However, the announcement didn’t really tell us much at all – just an image of MGS4’s version of Raiden with the words “Lightning Bolt Action”. It was said the game would be more hack n’ slash based, but to be honest all we could do was wait.
Continue reading ‘Metal Gear Solid: Rising’
If you cast your mind back to last year, and how much I was impressed by Milo, the annoying CGI child that Microsoft and Lion Head showed off when Natal was announced, you may remember me being pretty excited about that particular game/piece of software.
Continue reading ‘Milo: The Boy Who Was Never Born’
Usually every year I am excited about the Microsoft E3 Press conference. Nothing puts a smile on my face more than the thought of some big game announcements and previews for my beloved console. But to hear that most of the conference was about Kinect and how much this thing is about as revolutionary as the latest Final Fantasy title I feel a little disappointed and underwhelmed.
To be honest I am pretty much done with speaking about Kinect. So if your interested at all at what Kinect does or whatever. Check out my previous post devoted to the thing. It will tell you what its all about and the games coming out for it.
Continue reading ‘E3 2010: Microsoft Press Confernence’
The cowboy game is perhaps one of the more underused concepts, given the popularity of the classic western films that inspired many a mind both young and old – from the legendary Clint Eastwood movies, to Back to the Future III, the idea of horseback gangs and outlaws with pistols has always had a certain appeal – and it’s an idea that you’d think would lend itself to games rather well. Sure, there’s one or two titles out there, but I’d hardly say it was as well covered as the myriad of modern warfare, medieval knights and ninja games out there. Desperados on the PC was fantastic, yet didn’t give you a sense of being a cowboy with it’s RTS style; Darkwatch was, well, a vampire story with cowboy elements here and there – and I struggle to think of another good western game I’ve played.
Continue reading ‘Red Dead Redemption’
The rain beat down on the corrugated iron roof as the firs sizzled and spat as the occasional drop came through. It was cold; I could feel the wind blowing at the tattered remains of my sleeping bag and the snoozing of my compatriot across the shed from me. The door clacked on its weak hinges with a rusty metallic sound. I sighed, it was getting on for 3am, time to get some kip, Alexei would wake if something came to us. I was lucky enough to be hunting a guy with a sixth sense…
I put my bucket over my head in order to avoid the nightmares…something about the radiation messing with your head. 10 hours of tracking took their toll and I was soon fast asleep…
“Artyom! Artyom!”
A voice was yelling a name, it wasn’t mine but sounded familiar.
“Artyom get up! They’ve breached the barriers! We need everyman we can get!”
Suddenly my eye broke open, I was in a bunker underground, only a small candle for light, the smell of musk and dirt filled my nostrils my body was coated in sweat and rough cloth. A man burst in through the door.
“Artyom! To the barracks now! We have to defend the children!”
As I got up he trusts a pistol into my hands.
“Go! I must get the others!”
As he left an unearthly wail filled the air followed by rampant gunfire. I don’t know where I was, but I was sure in a lot of trouble…
Metro 2033 and I have…a troubled relationship. I’m doing a first look now because I’ve only had 3 hours of it so far on the Xbox 360 and my PC version has decided to give me the finger, but a replacement is on the way.
SO Im gonna give you guys a taster on what to expect with this title.
First up it looks gorgeous, despite mainly being set in the Moscow Metro meticulous detail has been used to give it a feeling of claustrophobia and fear. You dread what might be around the next corner and with good reason, the beats are seriously messed up, worthy of STALKER or Farcry. The weapons, while not all that special, feel real within the scenario. The ammo and weapons are handmade. However, the ammo trading system is a little odd. You can trade the better quality military issue rounds for weapons or dirty ammo that you can use as well, although they are not as effective.
The bunker hubs feel alive and bustling; you see people cooking, cleaning sleeping and children playing. A lot of love has been put into these linear but lively areas. That said, there are problems. The AI can be…pretty terrible. From the normal swarm to kill from monsters to randomly running and shooting from open ground from human combatants that hurt the game feeling.
Still, I see hope in this title and can’t wait to give you the full verdict. Heh, seems I reviewing a lot of flawed gems these days…
When someone says Lara Croft, and gamer, film fanatic or indeed human would automatically think Tomb Raider, unless you have a slight obsession with Angelina Jolie, which is of corse understandable.
So when the next Lara Croft game is announced your automatically going to think, ‘oooo another tomb raider!’ well this time I am afraid you are wrong. Yes there is a new Lara Croft game coming out, b ut it isn’t a tomb raider title. Let me shed some light on this slightly confusing concept.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a new digital download game that stars our well-loved female relic hunter. This title I would imagine will be available across the PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and PC, even though that bit of information hasn’t been set in stone yet, it would be rather silly if it wasn’t available for those platforms.
So what are the finer details of this title? Well as it is a DLC title, you would expect that it is not going to be as lengthy as your average Tomb Raider title, sadly, you would be right in thinking that. But and this is a big BUT, this game is said to focus more on re-play value and Co-op play which sounds pretty interesting to any well seasoned Lara Fan. Also the game play is said that it will go back to its root, with boob-trap puzzles, tombs and all the other game elements we loved from the first games.
Now that’s all well and good but what are we talking about story wise? Well the plot in all honesty isn’t that thick, you are Lara (obviously) and you have been teamed up with a Mayan tribes man who goes by the name of Totec, Totec of corse will be controlled by your co-op buddy when you decide to blast through the campaign mode as a pair. You are in search of a mysterious and yet powerful artifact called The Mirror Of Smoke, which of course has unleashed an evil spirit by the name of Xoxolt (kudos to anyone who can pronounce that name) who is unleashing his power to raise the dead. So you will be coming across a lot of zombie tribes men as you progress through the puzzled filled levels, plus a few other bigger and nastier enemies.
Camera angles these days play a huge part in gaming. This title features a fixed Isometric camera, which to me is probably one of the best type of camer angles you can have, meaning you will not get the camera stuck in walls or have it stop where enemies are pummeling you behind some scenery, Legacy of Kain did it well and I expect to see much of the same here.
Retro arcade gamers here are in for a treat, as this is mainly a puzzle orientated game, it sounds as though enemy combat will be straight out of your classic 1980’s shooting games, meaning that you point Lara at any enemy you want to die and press shoot, that’s all there is to it. Remember people this is a puzzle game after all, combat is only the icing on the gaming cake.
As I said previously, this game has a co-op mode, and with co-op modes you will find a lot of handy co-op moves for the both of you to use. For example, instead of welding duel hand guns such as our lovely heroine, Totec has spears, these are mainly for skewering the undead, but they also can be stabbed into walls for Lara to swing on, Also Totec has a shield which Lara can use as a platform while Totec holds it above his head. Lara also has her trusty grapple hook which she can swing across large gaps in classic Lara croft fashion, but Totec can also grab hold of Lara as she swings to aid him across. Lets just hope that he is a gentleman and does not go for the obvious hand holds.
Lara Croft and the Gardian of Light looks like it is shaping up to be a nice little downloadable game. It will be avalible this summer on a console/PC near you.
Garv!
As you already know, Portal is one of those Xbox Live Arcade games that will never ever be wiped off my Xbox Hardrive. Even though the game itself isn’t that huge. The whole idea, game play and the very story telling is fantastic and something I have never come across before or since the games release.
So who can imagine my epic excitement when I heard about portal 2’s conformation yesterday. The beautiful people at Game Informer magazine gave us a nice slice of the Portal 2 cake and have given us some great information which I cannot help but be excited about.
All this started when the tech heads at Valve let loose some new content and patches for the original Portal on PC last week. There was one new achievement slapped onto the game and some weird new cryptic noises and sounds coming from the radio in your chamber when you start the game. These new additions to the game sparked off a lot of PC geeks out there in the vast universe that is the internet to decode these sounds, turns out they were some sort of morse code which could be subverted into images. Sounds blinking weird I know but, these were the images that were uncovered.
Confused much? I sure as hell am. But as I dug deeper into the wealth of information about these images, it turns out that these are images taken from the Aperture Science CCTV from the first Portal. I bet some of you are thinking, yeah? so what? Well these images contain vital equations and data that all of the portal geeks out there were hungry to find and solve. After slaving over a keyboard and staring at these images till their eyes bled, it turns out they all lead to a number that once dialed up would let you into Valve’s bulletin board system and then let the user download some more images. These images known as ASCII images are images that are made up of keyboard characters. Here is an example
These were the first ever images of Portal 2. A lot of hacking coding and problem solving boiled down to 3 of these images….
…Then valve went and confirmed that Portal 2 will be coming out and hitting shelves at the end of the year for Xbox 360 and PC. Game informer then scooped it up and hey presto we have a sequel to a truly awesome game.
So what is this next installment going to be like? I have been doing reasearch here and there and I have found a couple of things out. Whether they are true or not I don’t know but I am going to list them anyway.
1. This is going to be a full-blown title, unlike Portal 1 where it was an attachment to the orange box. This title will be a stand-alone. Meaning it will be a lot bigger. This make me think that Portal 1 was maybe testing the water for the actual main event which is portal 2
2. This title is going to be set way in the future. Meaning that the long abandon Aperture Science labs are going to overgrown with foliage and very forest like. But be rest assure that this will not stop GLaDOS one bit.
3. GLaDOS makes a welcome return. The next generation SHODAN is back Baby!!
4. You again play as Chell (the same woman you played as in Portal 1)
5. split screen and online co-op staring 2 biped robots. Apparently these robots like to hold hands alot…in teresting.
6. some of the games physics will be juggled about to make up for some interesting game play. An air vent can be combined with a portal. This in turn sucks the player into the portal and spits them out the other side. Sounds awesome.
7. there will be alot more interactive objects from things that fling you sky-high to cubes that will deflect lasers.
8. there will be some new characters and a bit more story. Meaning that Valve has probably going all out on this title.
And that’s about it so far, stay tuned to Plus XP for more Portal 2 info as I hear it. Untill then I may have another stint at 1. I love GLaDOS!
Garv
