VGA 2011: Mass Effect 3 exclusive trailer

Mass Effect 3 not only makes an appearance yet again in this years Video Game Awards, but they also won Most antipicated game of 2012 thanks to viewer votes. The trailer has nothing new but shows Commander Shepard powering through a huge Reaper with a help of a Thrasher Maw.

Its not a shocker to see Mass Effect 3 make an appearance yet again for the VGA's. Mass Effect 3 made its debut reveal in the VGA's last year. Now there's only a couple of months left to see how the war against the Reapers conclude.

As usual, Shepard is tasked to make another miracle by fending off a Reaper invasion. There's seems to be a lot of colossal encounters for the third and final entry in Shepard's story. Can't wait on how this all ends. Mass Effect 3 will hit stores on March 6, 2012 for Xbox 360, Playstation, and PC

VGA 2011: The Last of Us Exclusive Debut Trailer

The teased PS3 exclusive has finally been revealed. During this year's VGA's, a debut trailer made entirely of in-game footage reveals that Naughty Dog is behind this new exclusive. A new direction coming from this game developer is appreciated. Not only can you see the jaw dropping graphics pushing the PS3 to its limits, The Last of Us seems to have a story worth exploring.

You can see the Uncharted influence everywhere in this title. Naughty Dog found their sweet spot. Applying the same amount of quality and game development used in Uncharted to  another title is very exciting to see. Voice acting and character model movements is superb, but Isn't that kid have a strong resemblance of Ellen Page?

[Update]Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance VGA 2011 trailer

If you have been following news about Metal Gear Rising, or lack there of, then you are probably aware that since the watermelon slicing trailer from E3 2009 that there has been no other information released about Metal Gear Rising, Raiden’s action spin-off from the Metal Gear series. The dryspell has come to an end as a leaked trailer of the game just came out.

The intro starts off pretty much the same showing off a FMV panning Raiden’s sword but after that almost everything has changed. From the Robocp font to just the pacing of the action alone looks completely redone. At first I thought “man, this game looks as crazy and over the top as Bayonetta”, lo and behold the name ‘Platinum Games’ appears on screen.

Now Metal Gear does have crazy set pieces and action scenes through the series but the level of craziness here just exceeds that of any MGS game for far. Again, Bayonetta insanity.  Now some of you might not like the idea that another studio is working on this game but Platinum has delivered quality more than enough to convince me that this is going to be awesome. Just think Metal-Gear-Solid-fueled-by-an-energy-drink, go watch the video, and you will understand just what I mean.

[Update]

Trailer's officially out, so here it is.

Forgive the lack of video. Since the trailer was leaked a little early and was meant to be shown at this year’s Video Game Awards (2011), the one upload of it from youtube was taken down. Luckly Gameinformer has it up on their site for our viewing pleasure. Click the source link to view the video.

Source [Gameinformer]

New Xbox 360 2011 dashboard update is now live!

The new Xbox 360 dashboard is now live! I personally like the dashboard of the 360 more than the Playstation 3 but its hard to navigate to find what you really need. This dashboard update fixes seems to fix that and added features that will make any Xbox 360 owner happy.

My Xbox 360 is already updated so I've tried the new dashboard myself. Off the bat, it's definitely easier to navigate compared to the old one. I remember taking awhile finding a specific content in the games marketplace because of how cluttered the content was. Now, everything feels simplified and compact. The overall layout of the dashboard design was definitely made for people with Kinect though, but the reason why I think this dashboard will work overall is because this layout is still friendly to users navigating with a controller.

If you don't like the new layout maybe the new feature will make you appreciate the latest update. The first one is my favorite.

Cloud Save

Yes! This is a great addition. A place to put your save files as either backup or if you'd like to play your save in a friend's house. This feature gives each Xbox Live gold member 500+MB of storage space to put your player profile and game files. The files saved on your cloud save will be accessible in any Xbox 360 console when you log into your account. While I don't see myself going to a friend's house to play with my save file, at least I won't be in a complete lose if something happened to my Hard Disk. I just love the fact that you have an option to place game files on Xbox Live for back-up. Back up is so important.

Beacons and Activity

I really like this idea. So usually you join a group or send a message asking if they want to play  some Call of Duty or any type of game. With Beacons and Activity, it makes it easier for people to find who's up to play a specific game in your friends list or Facebook account. Adding a beacon lets you state that your up for a specific game. When you set the beacon up, your friends will be notified that your up for that type of game, even though your seen playing Skyrim for 10 hours straight. You also have the option to sync your Facebook account and say that you want to play this game with friends. Beacons and Activity also records you and your friends currently gaming activity. It pretty much records what you've played recently and for how long.

Bing Search engine

Like I said, easier to navigate through Xbox Live. Bing is Microsoft's search engine and gives you yet another way to navigate through all of Xbox Live's content with ease. Put something like Fable in the search, and the search result will organize all content related to fable. Its pretty darn fast when searching too. I also appreciate that its first in the line of categories so I can go straight to what I need to see.

Xbox Live is really growing on me. I appreciate how easy it now is to navigate and the fact that it feels smooth and fast during its release day. So far no issue. This is not the end of what I'd like to call 360 Dashboard 2011. They say that they will be integrating youtube, the promised UFC application, and more before 2011 ends.

New PS3 exclusive teased

The Last of Us will be a new exclusive title for the Playstation 3. What kind of game is it? Have no idea. A teaser trailer(no actual footage of the game) show riots and other live footage with a man speaking that the whole world is messed.

More info about The Last of Us will be revealed in this year's VGA's(Video Games Award) which happens on Dec 10. A teaser site is also up for people to check out. What kind of game do you guys think it is?

[Source: Gematsu]