Are you brave enough to play this portable game in public?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Dead or Alive Paradise: Christie, Lisa, Rio
Are you brave enough to play this portable game in public?
Seth Killian Talks About SSF IV
Seth Killian talks about the risks Capcom made with Street Fighter IV and why you shouldn't underestimate Hakan.
XBLA: Hydro Thunder Hurricane
Reminds me of Wave Race 64 and Wipeout. It's the sequel to 1999's Hydro Thunder.
AvP3: Multiplayer "Launch" Trailer
Yes, a "launch" trailer for a game that has been released in the middle of February. In internet time that's super old.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Dead Space 2: First Cam Footage
Short, but good. See Isaac's new advanced suit in action for the first time.
Arcania Tech Demos
The next game in the Gothic series. Let's hope the game will be playable, because the Gothic series is famous for bug infestations.
Friday, March 26, 2010
New Hydrophobia Footage
What once has been planned as full price retail game, will come episodic via DLC.
Mass Effect: Work On 3 Has Begun And C. Hudson Interview
Hell yeah, the work on Mass Effect 3 takes the first steps. Casey Hudson speaks below on Mass Effect 2 and DLC. I love this game.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Witcher II Cutscene
The game has a certain atmosphere which can be described best as dark fantasy.
SSF IV: Blanka Vs Seth, Adon Vs Sagat
In the first fight you can see a new location and Blanka's and Seth's new ultras. Blanka's original ultra has been left out of Super Street Fighter IV, because many gamers felt it was too powerful.
Second fight shows Adon from Street Fighter Alpha, who makes his premiere in the Street Fighter IV series. Also the stage is new in Super Street Fighter IV.
Borderlands: Claptrap Is Back
Seems like the game has won an award. Strangely I can't find it here. The video is funny nonetheless. Propably it's a joke because it hasn't won an award.
Modern Warfare 2: Rofl Videos And Stimulus Map Pack
The first video is about a cure against mapathy, a disease of repeating maps. Propably mapathy wouldn't even have occured if they made Modern Warfare 2 moddable and mappable. Second video is about hundred things in MW2 somebody disliked. And the third is the official trailer for the DLC maps.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
SSF IV: Hakan And Juri Rival Matches, Bonus Rounds
That rival match intro between Hakan and Honda is funny. That's the Street Fighter drama as I like it.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Mass Effect 2's Tech Coming To Real Life?
Michio Kaku is an renowned American physicist and talks about the tech in Mass Effect 2 and the possibilities to make the fiction a fact.
The Witcher 2 Debut Trailer
Serious fantasy. The console port of the first game has been cancelled, but I hope that it'll be able to understand what's going on nonetheless. The introduced sex scene looks cool, her cloths just dissolves. That's magic.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Portable Bad Company 2 Sighted In Belgium
But neither for DS, nor for iPhone.
Footage of the guerilla action in Brussels for the Belgian launch of EA's Battlefield Bad Company 2. Mobile snipers, a 20.000 lumen Barco HD beamer projecting 'real time hands-on' BFBC2 game images onto the Crown Plaza hotel, and a critically acclaimed, kick ass game: this is extreme gaming taken to a whole new level. Enjoy!
ME2: Kasumi DLC Will Cost 560 MS Points
What a strange price is that. I'd have expected 400 MS points.
Guildford, UK – March 22, 2010 – Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today revealed an all-new playable character to the Mass Effect™ 2 universe, a master thief named Kasumi. Coming this April in North America and Europe, the Kasumi – Stolen Memory PDLC pack will introduce Kasumi Goto, the galaxy’s most enigmatic and cunning master thief. In addition to being able to recruit Kasumi in all new missions, players will be able to utilize her special skills as a member of Commander Shepard’s squad throughout the entire game. The Kasumi – Stolen Memory PDLC pack will be available for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system at a cost of 560 Microsoft points, and on PC for 560 BioWare points.
“Mass Effect 2 is BioWare’s highest Metacritic game to date, and we are excited to be able to expand that experience by introducing another engaging new character in Kasumi,” said Aaryn Flynn, Studio General Manager of BioWare Edmonton. “Kasumi – Stolen Memory is a testament to our promise to continue to provide fans with new, compelling, high quality post-launch content.”
Cerberus has procured the service of Kasumi Goto, the galaxy’s most enigmatic master thief. In return for her help, Kasumi has asked for Commander Shepard’s help on a dangerous heist to infiltrate the vault of a deadly master criminal named Donovan Hock. Players must gain Kasumi’s loyalty on the planet Bekenstein, where Hock is throwing a party for some of the galaxy’s richest and most deranged criminal minds. The mission: recover data of great importance to Kasumi, and to the galaxy at large. In addition to this new mission, players will also receive a new research upgrade, one new weapon, and a new achievement in this PDLC pack.
Prior to the launch of Kasumi in April, also being released on March 23 through the Cerberus Network is the Firewalker DLC pack, which includes five heart-pounding missions taking place on five uncharted worlds. Players will be able to explore planets and engage in combat in the new Hammerhead hover-tank.
What I'm Playing: Mass Effect 2
Alright, I had a lot of stress lately with my real life and the duties for my studies, so in fact I didn't have had the time to play Mass Effect 2 earlier and I'm better not mentioning all the problems with the week long delay until I had the game in hands. However, lately I finally found myself the time to sit down and play the game.
Propably you know that the first Mass Effect is one of my all time favorites and Mass Effect 2 has to live up to a big hype to satisfy me. But there was not one moment I doubted Bioware's skills. And what should I say after over 20 hours in the game? I am completely amazed of how awesome this game is.
Mass Effect 2 plays two years after the events of the first game. Shepard is on a standard top secret Alliance mission when his space ship, the Normandy, is attacked by a far superior vessel. Unfortunatly the Normandy gets destroyed, but not until every important crew member saves himself into an escape pod. Everybody but Shepard who's blasted into the darkness and dies.
Two years later Shepard awakes in a secret research lab. Cerberus, the infamous crime syndicate from Mass Effect stitched him up again. While escaping the under attack facility, he meets Miranda and Jacob. She's a scientist and responsible for the Lazarus project which lead to Shepards resurrection and he is a high ranked Cerberus soldier. They work together, escape and Shepard is introduced to the Illusive Man, the mysterious boss behind the radical pro human organisation. Humanity is under attack and Shepard is the only one to save the galaxy once again.
That's the prologue for a massive space opera which's scale mustn't hide behind a sci fi legend like Star Wars. In fact, one could say that Mass Effect is the Star Wars for the internet generation with it's deep and complex universe, the real life parallels to the diplomatic ties of the greatly worked out species or the decision - consequence concept. The game in many way shows reflections of the world we live in, which clearly underlines it's aim for a mature audience. If there are really still people (conservative journalists without any clues of gaming most likely) out demanding for a game with a storyline that emancipates the video game culture from childish sorry storielines like Super Mario or whatever, here it is!
The thing that impresses me most about this game are of course the emphasis on the brilliantly worked out characters. You immediatly begin to care about them (okay, for anybody but Zaeed), chat with them about the latest events and storyline progressions or about their personal histories. And that's where a new Mass Effect 2 feature comes in: Loyality. Everybody of your crew has his personal dark past and problem's that demand solving. Do you care or don't you? It's, as always in the series, your decision. For example: I did the loyalty mission for Garrus, who needs to assassinate someone responsible for killing all of his spec ops team. While Shepard lures the target in shooting range, you can decide to either warn the target or get him killed. Of course all this has consequences and if the target person is shot dead you can't expect to cross his or her path again in Mass Effect 3.
Continuity plays a big role in Mass Effect 2 and that is a very rewarding feeling that no other game has achieved until now. When I read about the secret Mass Effect save game containing 4 or 5 decisions, I thought okay... is it not important how I dealt with the Rachni queen in the first game? To save it and give the species a last and new chance or to bug spray her to death and seal the Rachni's fate? And then I met an agent of the Rachni queen on the Asari planet Illium, who secretly delivered a thank you message. And there are lots of meeting old NPCs in the game, each based on your behavior in the first game. In total there are about 700 decisions of the first game that found their way into Mass Effect 2 - that is very impressive. It's the extreme amount of detail that fascinates me: Everything is so polished and well done. As said: The dialogues combined with the character animation give you the close to perfect illusion of really talking with a living being. And that's how Bioware managed to establish a bond between player and characters: The game consumes you, not the other way round.
Of course as die hard Mass Effect fan I am not lucky with all decisions: I've gotten used to the strict and linear mission design. Turns out that for the new action oriented playstyle it fit's good. But I really don't like that you don't have an inventory this time and are forced to change your gear at so called weapon stashes. And you can't buy any weapons or armors, you'll have to find them during missions. There are extremly few new armors (accessible via Cerberus Network, the in game DLC pipe line for first buyers), but you can upgrade your standard armor with new parts during the game. A great new edition is the customization of the the armor. Shepard really appears in every cut scene exactly as you dress him - that's an ideal other game's still need to reach. After completing loyalty missions every character gets a second dress, which is nice, but doesn't appease me about the loss of all great armors of the first game. But those points are nothing more but small scratches on a masterpiece. I am very happy, that the game is finally out and playable. I am looking forward to play it a long time from now, because the DLC support is going to be Dragon Age: Origins like and I am planing to get every story driven addition for this fantastic game. I hyped Mass Effect 2 up as the best game that'll ever be made. Propably it is.
Check out my tribute to the game:
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