Silent Hill HD Collection changes voice actors

There's more to this story than just simply switching voice actors.

From Destructoid:

Konami has announced that it would be recasting the voice actors for Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 on theHD collection. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the decision, but James Sunderland's original actor, Guy Chihi, has already formed an opinion -- and accused Konami of trying to duck out of paying him.

"Konami knows that they owe me residuals for all previous unauthorized re-uses of my mocap and vocal performances," he alleged. "It would appear Konami is seeking to avoid further liability by changing the voice in their latest re-use of the SH2 materials. However, if any of my mocap appears in the new release, Konami will be liable for unauthorized reuse of my performance. Like Gump’s Momma said, 'Stupid is as stupid does.' It would have been much better for everyone had Konami simply made me a reasonable offer ...

"I’ll get around to seeking compensation through the courts one of these days. I simply don’t have the time for it right now. I hope this doesn’t bum out any fans ... It’s just business as usual on the production side of games."

This news is pretty crazy and has certainly dampened my excitement for the collection. Whatever one thinks of the voice actors, they were part of the original charm and I can't say I'm fond of having them cut out. I just don't know what Konami's damage is when it comes to Silent Hill lately.

James Voice Actor Speaks Out About Silent Hill 2 HD Re-Casting [The Gaming Liberty]

Epic Games' website and forums hacked

This is getting way too much, just when we thought the hacking issue was behind us one more shows up. Epic games,(creator of Gears of War and Bulletstorm), is the latest victim of game site hacks. The company's website and forums was compromised and passwords and emails may have been taken. 

Epic Games have reset all the users passwords and thankfully no other information was stolen. The company never asked their users for credit card information so there's no problem with that.

The gaming community can't seem to catch a break with all this hacking business. This all started with the PSN outage and slowly other companies are having hacking incidents.

Our Epic Games web sites and forums were recently hacked. After some downtime, they’re back up and running now.

The hackers may have obtained the email addresses and encrypted passwords of forum users. Plaintext passwords weren’t revealed, but it’s possible that those passwords could be obtained by a brute-force attack on the encrypted passwords. Therefore, we have reset all passwords. Your new password at the bottom of this message.

The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) hasn’t been compromised. Thankfully, none of our web sites ask for, or store, credit card information or other financial data.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and appreciate everyone’s patience as we wrestle our servers back under control.

Tim Sweeney

Founder, Epic Games Inc

[Source: Destructoid]

E3 2011: Prey 2 gameplay demo

If you're wondering what Prey 2 is all about, we got a gameplay demo you guys should check out. It's an Open world FPS and that alone makes it completely different from its predecessor. You play as Killian Samuels, once a U.S marshall on earth is now an alien bounty hunter on the planet Exodus. Human Head Studios is developing this game with the help of Bethesda Softworks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZva__rU14]

I can't really say anything to compare this to the first game since i never played it but this makes me want to grab a copy to prepare myself when Prey 2 comes out. It has a movement mechanic somewhat similar to Brink and has some cool gadgets that you can use to capture your bounty. There will be tons of bounty to collect dead or alive, and there are different ways to tackle a certain bounty. Go guns blazing in the front, head to the back, or take someone hostage for collateral similar to whats shown in the video. it's all up to you.

Prey 2 is coming next year 2012 on the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

E3 2011: Final Fantasy 13-2 stage demo

Final Fantasy 13-2 made an appearance at this year's E3 giving us an in-game trailer plus a stage demo for people to try  out and for us to see. So far, the gameplay is just like 13, the whole paradigm shifts. Whats new though in the game is the Quick time events during battle and monsters as a third party member? Sorry, not liking whats new for this sequel but maybe you guys will so go check it out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrvtJ4HULj8&feature=channel_video_title]

Another good change is that there will be towns now to explore and the map won't look like a pipeline heading to one direction. They finally addressed this issue but there is still so much more we need to know about this sequel. Last time they released a sequel, it was for Final Fantasy X and that was just plain horrible. Final Fantasy X was one of the best for me in the series and it's sequel just ruined it. Hopefully this won't happen again and will actually turn out to be a better game than 13.

The demo shows a new playable character Noel along with Serah, Lightning's younger sister who now fights and wields a moogle that transforms. Where are the old crew? they say they will return for this game but no news yet on who will be playable and how big their role will be.  So far, only Lightning is confirmed playable for 13-2.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPPuHHfUwOc]

I'm still bothered by the fact that your third party member will be a series of creatures you've collected in the game. Why couldn't they just add one extra character into the mix? we'll see how this game plays out in the end but so far I'm not interested. It has no official release date but is aiming for an early 2012 release.

How does the game look for you guys? still hyped for this title?

E3 2011: Never Dead

Never Dead is a 3rd person action shooter in which you have an immortal character. And I know what you're thinking, "how does that work?". Well we have Bryce Boltzmann is a demon hunter and after the unfortunate death of his wife, a curse makes him immortal and now he's paired with a woman named Arcadia. So yea... possible escort game?

The demo they showed at the E3 show floor hd a segment where Bryce was with Arcadia but it wasn't long and hopefully that won't be the case when the game comes out cause I hate escort missions. So if your partner dies, that's one scenario of a gameover. Another would be if Bryce's head gets eaten or something. Since he's immortal, limbs are expendable. You can use your arms as a distraction for demon dogs to be used as a chew toy while you take em out or link electrical wires using your body as the medium and so forth.

If an enemy does too much damage, Bryce's head flies off. You can basically say that you control Bryce's head as when if gets detached from his body, that's what you control as it rolls around the stage. When you're just a head, you either need to wait for your body to grow back or (if it's still intact) find it around the stage. That brings a pretty unique approach to a 'lifebarless' game. Looking forward to how this game plays out.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr6KryINLIk&w=560&h=349]