Batman: Arkham City Gameplay Trailer

Finally we get our first look at gameplay in the upcoming Batman: Arkham City. We have some looks at some of the new villians, Two-Face and Catwoman and the return of a few familiar faces. The trailer comes courtesy of IGN, and it really looks awesome.

In a related story found on G4TV, the games campaign mode will take you only 8hrs to complete. Rocksteady’s Dax Ginn says, “I can tell you that our QA guys, who are ninjas and obviously know everything in the game, can do just the core story missions, nothing else, in about eight hours, just straight-lining.” So really it’s the guys who designed the game and they aren’t doing any side missions or trying for other trophies in the game. I’m guessing we can at least double that time for the average player.

Rocksteady is saying there will be additional features that will make Arkham City replayable. “In terms of replayability or filling out a single-player story with additional features, there are more announcements that we’re going to make, which I think will solve that problem,” Dax Ginn told CVG.

My guess, is multiple endings or other choices that effect the outcome of the game. What do you think?

Batman Arkham City releases on October 18th on PlayStation 3, XBox 360 and PC.

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Battle: Los Angeles Takes Fight to Consoles

KONAMI recently announced that they will team up with Saber Interactive to bring Battle: Los Angeles to the the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. The game will be a First Person Shooter following the storyline of the movie in which aliens invade Los Angeles. It is your duty to take on the role as a US Marine helping fight off the alien assault using your various weapons. According to KONAMI your arsenal will feature “assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, frag grenades, and a turret gun.” Essentially your standard arsenal outside the turret gun.

The game has a lot of potential as does the movie. However, not much has been released about the game which is pretty impressive considering how close we are to the rough release date of “sometime in March.” The film by Columbia Pictures is set to release March 11, 2011 so one can imagine the game will likely be released around that date. For those interested in a trailer, it is available here.

Saber Interactive is a relatively unknown studio whose only prior console release was Timeshift which did not receive favorable reviews. This is Saber’s chance to establish a name aside one of the larger game companies, KONAMI. Hopefully, Saber generates enough success through this game to help fund their upcoming project, Inversion.

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Portal 2: The long awaited return of teleportation

If you haven’t lived life the way should and haven’t played the first portal game released in 2007, then be prepared to be awestruck by the release of Portal 2 on 21st April 2011. Portal is a first person shooter with a difference, and this difference is what caused the game to reach new heights in the gaming industry when it was released. It is a first person shooter but without all the violence death and destruction. Instead you have to use your brain to get through the level. Your character has a portal gun which, simply, creates portals when shot into a flat surface. Once two portals are shot, you can pass through one and appear out the other. Simple!

If you did play the first Portal then you would know that after some time of punching walls trying to get through one level was a bit annoying, but also addictive. This soon ended with Portal as the game was awfully short, and didn’t last as long as players hoped. However, wipe away that sad face because next month Portal 2 will be released, featuring a whole new long-winded story rather than a small disappointing campaign. Valve, the creators of Portal and also titles such as Left 4 Dead and Half-Life have stressed the new improved story of Portal 2 with a whole range of characters and a lot more puzzles to be stuck on and to be ecstatic when completed.

Valve seem to be really excited with a new feature to Portal which is the co-operative play. Instead of controlling the usual character, Chell, players will be imported into the bodies of two robots, both equipped with portal guns, so if you work it out, it can mean a total of four portals. This game is going to be hectic, but hopefully still as good fun as the first Portal game.

Puzzle games seem to be growing a lot bigger than they used to be with their unique ideas and fun designs, this not only goes for Portal but for other games, such as the popular Angry Birds. It seems to be a big market for new and interesting games and I believe that a lot more puzzle games such as these are to be expected in the coming years. Portal is a really fun and unique game and if you haven’t played it then you are really missing out. An FPS with a difference, Portal is game for all ages, bringing puzzle games back to life and inspiring a wide range of game developers. Valve’s Portal 2 seems to be an awesome game to remember and you haven’t experienced it as of yet, then you should. Portal is an experience not to be missed.

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Catherine Will Receive a US Release According to Atlus, Summer 2011

Atlus has recently confirmed that their recent Japanese release, Catherine, will release in the US in Summer 2011. The game released in Japan on February 17, 2011, and many were disappointed when Atlus originally claimed it would not be released in the US. For anyone that enjoys Atlus’ unique games, this is another masterpiece. This is the same development studio that brought us legendary series like Shin Megami Tensei and Trauma Center. In Japan this game has been well received scoring well in most reviews and selling over 160,000 copies in the first week of release.

Catherine is an action adventure puzzle game set to release for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game is a bit mature and not recommended for young age groups due to the risqué content. The game has two separate worlds to play in. During the Daytime you control a young man named Vincent. During Daytime you can interact with NPCs, save, and play a mini game called Rapunzel. The other world, Nightmare, is where the actual game play takes place. Vincent must work his way through the nightmares in various ways for if he dies in the nightmare, he dies in real life. All the while, Tim must decide between his longtime lover Katherine or the girl he met mysteriously before the nightmares began, Catherine.

Overall, the game is interesting and unique. That is the one thing I enjoy most about Atlus. They create games that no one has thought of unlike the generic bulk that floods the market. As usual with Atlus games, this is not recommended to everyone. Atlus has a pretty niche market and if you have not liked their prior games, I would not suggest this one either. On the other hand, if you liked any prior Atlus games, then this is a must buy and will likely have a very limited print. Be sure to pre-order your copy when it becomes available and check out the trailer here.

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Super Meat Boy developer Team Meat snubbed by Microsoft

Many of you may be familiar with Super Meat Boy, the highly praised (and notoriously difficult) Xbox Live Arcade game that came out in October of last year. Well today at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, Tommy Refenes, the co-CEO of Team Meat, the indie studio responsible for the game, accused Microsoft of making several promises that they did not keep. For one thing, the “Game Feast” promotion for the Xbox last October was supposed to exclusively feature Super Meat Boy for one week, but Costume Quest by Double Fine was included at the last minute. Furthermore, while Microsoft promised that Super Meat Boy would be given the number one slot in the Xbox 360 dashboard’s “Spotlight Feed” it instead wasn’t featured at all until halfway through the game’s launch day. And then it was placed in the number four slot, coming in behind a bundle sale of many other games that had already come out and of all things, a Mazda 3 commercial.

While the Game Feast flier featured Super Meat Boy, Team Meat states that it was severely neglected during the promotion

Team Meat had been told that the better their game sold the more promotion it would receive, but this too seemed to be an unkept promise. Super Meat Boy significantly outsold other titles included in the “Game Feast” promotion and was very highly rated by game reviewers, but was given no further marketing support.

Team Meat struggled to find out what they might have done wrong that Microsoft would do this to them, but there seemed to be no particular reason behind it. “It’s not supposed to hurt your feelings because it’s business, but it totally … hurt my feelings.” Tommy Refenes said. According to Team Meat, the only reason why the game sold so well was the effort they themselves put into advertising it. There appears to be truth to that claim as well, since the sales of Super Meat Boy on the PC via Steam were far better than those on the 360.

Super Meat Boy certainly is happy

Despite this debacle, Team Meat is doing very well for itself. Super Meat Boy has over 400,000 sales across all platforms, and Team Meat is currently working on something for the 3DS. Whether this is Super Meat Boy or another brand new title has not been announced yet.

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Brink: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge

2011’s new fast rolling first person shooter, Brink, is scheduled for release on 17th May. So if your one of those, ‘Call of Duty is my life’ then prepare to be shocked at the release of Brink. Brink is produced by Bethesda, the same guys who made Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. Although gameplay wise I would have to say the game relates to Borderlands, with all the reused materials and hundreds of guns.

You may be wondering, what makes Brink so special? Well first of all it’s got a system that the developers call SMART. This stands for, Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. It simply means that it will realize where you are and what you want to do, so will help with jumping over and onto structures and sliding under gates etc. I think that this will be a really cool feature making it especially fun playing online. Brink is going to be released on the main three platforms; Xbox 360, PC and PS3

The creators of Brink have focused A LOT on the online experience and therefore if you are someone who doesn’t play online, then i fear this game will be limited to you, as are many first person shooters to offline players. Brink’s online experience looks amazing and great fun, the way you can slide and jump to flank or distract your enemies is an awesome new feature to use in combat.

Offline and Online the experience is relatively the same. You can play with up to 7 other players fighting enemy AI using command posts to change class in battle. Brink also has an objective wheel, that depending on your class, gives you objectives to earn experience points.Once you select an objective a guidence arrow and instructions will appear at the top of the screen, so don’t fear you wont no what to do.

Experience points are earned through killing enemies or completing objectives, as in most other shooter games. These experience points give you the opportunity to unlock all sorts of things such as weapons and gear to customize your character. Brink has loads of gear and accessories to customize your character with. Theres so much you can do to customize your character you can be guaranteed that no-one will be running around wearing the same stuff as you, thus making you the ultimate badass.

Brink has a total of four classes, Soldier who can demolish objectives, and offer ammo upgrades, Medic who can heal team mates, Engineer who can deploy or repair team objectives and improve the teams weapons, and Operative who can hack enemy defenses and sneak behind enemy lines. These four classes cover all aspects of a FPS creating a more team like experience. The classes are based on a core set of skills but leveling up allows you to unlock new items and abilities, allowing you to specialize into one area of class. This helps to achieves Brink’s goal which is to allow players to build the game experience that they want to play. Brink’s going to be a high jumper this year so expect big things and get from stores Tuesday 17th May 2011.

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Fable III finally coming to PC!!!!

Fable III is finally coming to PC!!!! Fable is arriving a mere 2-3 months after it was released for Xbox 360. The windows version of the game is set to release on the 19th of May in europe, two whole days before the game is launched in the US and A. So called “Hardcore” Gamers can get a special version that gives them an extra challenge that wasn’t available on the Xbox 360 version.

LionHead Studios are releasing a DLC for Fable III, they have called the DLC Traitor’s Keep. The add-on will only cost 560 Microsoft points and is being released on the 1st of March, 4 days to go!!!!
The add-on will feature three individual stories; Ravenscar Keep,       Clockwork Island, and the Godwin Estate.                                                                    Unfortunately I haven’t found any news about this game coming to PC or windows, I am currently trying to find some information about that.

Any body with a windows phone 7 will be happy to know that LionHead Studios have also released Fable: Coin Golf. This is a short version that works in conjunction with your Xbox 360. You can transfer any gold you make to your Fable story on your xbox and you can transfer 3 exclusive weapons from your phone to your xbox 360.

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My Addiction with the Zombies Mode of COD: BO and the New Maps

My experience with the zombies mode of the Treyarch Call of Duty games goes back to World at War, when I first played it at a friends house. I never owned that game, so I never really got into them and it was just sort of “another useless feature” for me. When Black Ops came out I ignored the zombies mode, for the most part. I was too busy with the Wager matches to be bothered by those damn Communist zombies. Most of my attention was focused on the normal multiplayer modes and the wager matches. I never even finished the campaign.

I don’t remember exactly when I got into the zombies thing. I think I got bored with the multiplayer one day and decided to give it a try. At first I thought it was boring because I had no idea of what I was doing, but as I kept playing and meeting people I found out things and objectives about the mode. It finally made sense. Then I started playing with a friend. He has a lot of time to waste (I don’t), so as soon as he caught the zombie virus he kept insisting every single night that we should play. Well, at first it was cool and fun, but then it got a bit annoying.

The worst thing was we didn’t really have matching schedules. Sometimes I had time to play on the afternoons while he had the mornings free, and so we usually ended up playing at separate times. One time I met these really experienced guys and we got to somewhere around level 30. That was pretty cool and I got to mock my friend about it for a couple weeks. That time I learned a lot about the game, and from then on our round average was around the 20-25. Good times. We even got a few other friends to join us in our addiction, but they didn’t take it as seriously as we did.

We also never got to play “Five”. We played it a couple times but found it to be too damn difficult, and we had already gotten used to our strategies on “Kino der Toten”. There’s just so many things that could go wrong. So many strategies to try out. The box, that damn box that can surprise you as much as appall you. The upgrades and the machines and which doors to open first and where to turn the traps on, there’s just endless re-playability to this mode.  To this day we still play zombies whenever we can. But we are getting kind of tired of Kino. It’s time for the new maps, bring them on!

I should probably also mention that I play on the PS3, and we haven’t gotten the new maps yet.  The package that Activision puts out is called “First Strike”, it includes 4 new multiplayer maps and a zombie map. The multiplayer maps are:

• Discovery: An old abandoned research station. Creepiness ensues.
• Kowloon: You battle on a rooftop in China.
• Stadium: Yeah, a hockey arena, you heard it right.
• Berlin Wall: You battle on both sides of the famous dividing wall.

But who cares about multiplayer, right? Let’s talk zombies. The new zombie map is called “Ascension” and it is set in a Soviet launch facility. You get access to new weapons like the MP5k and the AK-47u. The mystery boxes make an appearance, obviously. There are many rooms where you can head to, just like always. There is also a new type of zombies called the “monkey zombies”, and they have the ability to steal your perks, so be careful out there.

The new map pack is out now for the Xbox 360 and will be available March 3rd for the PS3. It is $15, or 1200 Microsoft Points.

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