More MvC 3 character Reveals: Akuma and Taskmaster
Akuma & Taskmaster reveal trailer [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X1TLry-RoA&feature=player_embedded]
Two more reveals for Marvel vs Capcom 3 has shown up on the net which leaves us to 6 more possible character reveals until game release on Feb 15. For the Capcom side we have Akuma. Akuma has always been a great Character and from the looks of it, he might be heading for the Top Tier. Raging Demon going through supers!? For Marvel we have Taskmaster. A Villain that has the ability to mimic any move without any form of practice. In Marvel, they call his abilities Photographic reflexes able to copy them precisely.
Marvel vs Capcom 3 will be released on February 15, 2011 on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
Bulletstorm is all about being a badass...
Bulletstorm didn't have a big impact for me when i first saw it but as we get closer to the release date of Epic Games fresh new First Person Shooter, i grew curious. The only thing that caught my eye when i first heard about it in E3 2010 is that Cliff bleszinski(Gears of War Franchise, Unreal Franchise)was working on Bulletstorm. I thought, "cool another FPS Title", then forgot about it the whole year. Now where at 2011 and i've been seeing developer diary's of the game and it seems worth checking out.
Bulletstorm is all about how much of a Badass you can be in this game. This isn't your typical First Person Shooter we see nowadays, actually i get the Doom vibe which i miss a lot. It seems to be all about having fun with your enemies.
they want you to get creative on how you kill your enemies, and they reward you for it with their skill shot system they have going. Their weapons look pretty awesome that gives you hilarious ways to kill people. The more unique kills you do in this game, the better the points, and that sounds fun to me.
It feels like its bringing something fresh for the First Person Shooter genre with all the Call of Duty Medal of Honor games we see all around but i guess its too early to tell how well this game will do. I completely disregarded this game back in 2010 but i'm definitely eager to try it out for myself. I honestly want to try out new IP games cause we have too many sequels nowadays. New is good and its always welcome. Bulletstorm is going for the over the top Badass Game with their Brutality, foul language and etc so we'll see how well it does for them when released.
There's a demo coming up on Xbox Live on Jan 25 and on Playstation Network on Jan 26 and Can't wait for that. If your a First Person Shooter kind of guy, give this game a try and you might like what you see. Oh and by the way, this game has a four barrel shotgun. FOUR! Can't wait to shoot that shit on point blank.
Bulletstorm will be released on February 22, 2011 on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Bulletstorm Trailer [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjNEKnifT5M&feature=player_embedded]
Bulletstorm Developement Diary: Weapons Echoes and Anarchy Mode
Mayor Mike Haggar and Phoenix joins MvC 3
Two new characters was revealed for Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and this reveal took me by suprise. For the Capcom side, Mayor Mike Haggar from the famous 1989 Final Fight Series joins the roster. Who needs Zangief when you have The Mayor to wrestle against the Hulk. For the Marvel side, Phoenix, one of the strongest beings in the Marvel universe will be showing how bad ass she can get in an all out brawl.
Two down, possibly eight more characters to reveal before the release of the game on Feb 15. Below are the trailers for Haggar and Phoenix.
Mayor Mike Haggar MvC 3 trailer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gImpF0uTnx0&feature=player_embedded]
Phoenix MvC 3 Trailer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3etU3oJLEaU&feature=player_embedded]
REVIEW: Dead Rising 2
For guys like myself playing a Zombie infested game, is heaps of fun! This Fantasy Creature we call the walking dead has been a favorite to many over the years. Ever since Zombies invaded the gaming world, we’ve been “blessed” with games such as Resident Evil, House of the Dead and the famous Left 4 dead. These games have proved that killing off zombies over and over again and surviving a Zombie outbreak is oh so satisfying. You might ask why is it satisfying to murder these slow, brain eating, rotting corpse over and over again? Heck, who cares, it’s fun! And Dead Rising 2, gives you just that and a lot of ways to do it too. It sucks to be a zombie, it is even worse if you’re a zombie in Dead Rising 2.
You play as Chuck Greene, an Ex-motocross Champion forced to play this game show called Terror is Reality to support his only daughter Katey. He lost his wife during the last outbreak and has been killing zombies for a living ever since. Which bring him to another zombie break in Fortune City, a city based on the casino strip in Vegas. Chuck gets Katey and heads to the safe house where he meets other survivors. He then finds out that he’s being framed for the outbreak and now has 72 hours to clear his name before the Military arrives to clean up the outbreak. The story was not great and is easily forgettable but the gameplay more than makes up for it.
Dead Rising 2 is time driven. Your given 72 in-game hours to do everything that has to be done, and you must manage your time carefully or you’ll miss important parts of the game. I’ve gotten myself in situations where I did not make it in time for the main story because I had too much fun smashing zombies while saving survivors in Fortune City. Don’t worry, if this happens to you, you’re given the choice to restart the story and carrying over your stats and key items or you can just simply load your last save file. The time given for each mission is not forgiving; you’ll be seeing yourself racing against the clock every time to head to your next objective. Just like the first game, Leveling is still around. You start at level one and as you progress in the game, your Chuck gets faster, stronger, and you get skills that can help you take care of those zombies in your way.
Fortune City is a huge place for Chuck to explore. Everything in Fortune City can be a weapon, from swinging golf balls, to using a lawn mower outside to clear the way for your allies, the game has a huge number of items that can be picked up any time. In fact, running around trying every item to use on zombies can be time consuming but still awesome. Besides weapons in Fortune City, you find a huge number of clothing that you can wear to give your Chuck your own personality which carries over on the cut scenes. You don’t only encounter zombies, there are still bosses in Dead Rising 2, just like the first, their called Psychopaths and man! fighting them can be annoying. There’s not much strategy in these fights, it’s mostly hack away and use a healing item when you’re low.
Dead Rising 2 lacks several small things that could elevate its game play satisfaction such as options to plot your own waypoints and less loading time. The lengthy loading time destroys the game’s pace of racing against the clock. The game isn’t that difficult although it gets a little harder as you progress having zombies more aggressive but the gameplay will feel just the same when you hit that part of the story.
The Best Feature of Dead Rising 2 is their new Combo Cards system, where you get to combine 2 items and make an awesome weapon, like grab a box of nails and combine it with a baseball bat and you get a deadly bat with nails on the tip of the bat for you to smash on zombie heads! There’s a total of 50 Combo Cards for you to find and using these combined weapons gives you extra PP(Prestige Points) when used. This is a great addition to the game, as you progress, killing zombies may begin to feel repetitive but The Combo system helps create ingenious ways of annihilating them. It’s great to explore all the combinations, some are absurd and weird while some are just awesome to look at when used on a zombie.
Another Great addition is Co-op play. You get the option to bring your version of chuck into someone’s game or make a friend join your game for some zombie killing cooperation. During my first play through, I played on my friend’s story progression and it’s a blast smashing zombie heads with a friend. Aside from co-op play, just like games nowadays, they have multiplayer. The multiplayer is pretty much the game show Terror is Reality, the game show Chuck was in before the outbreak started. You become one of the contestants of the game show, competing against 3 other people in 9 different kinds of zombie mini-games. In my opinion this was the least fun. The Multiplater aspect of Dead Rising 2 Felt like an afterthought and seemed pretty pointless to me.
The Graphics of Dead Rising 2 wasn’t all that impressive, the character models were decent looking but What Impressed me was the sheer number of zombies that were on screen for each area. Don’t try clearing the area because they will just randomly spawn out of nowhere so it’s never ending really. I’ve had usual Frame rate drops but the frame drops weren’t a bother in gameplay. Overall, the game was worth the buy, it has small issues that if resolved, could have made Dead Rising 2 a better game. It has tons of content, lots of replay value and a fun co-op game to enjoy with a friend. If you enjoyed the First Dead Rising, you will love the second one for sure.
Score: 85/100
REVIEW: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West has everything you have for an epic adventure. Chase scenes, intense fights, a colorful world to explore, and a good story to tell. Enslaved was a breath of fresh air for me, a game that focuses more on presentation and story. From the likable characters, a colorful post-apocalyptic setting, to a well written story, this game will suck you in from start to finish but with a few bumps along the way. A game developed by Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, new Devil May Cry), Enslaved: Odyssey to the West shows us what Ninja Theory aims to achieve with their games, and that is story telling.
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Played on: Playstation 3
Published by: Namco Bandai Games
Developed by: Ninja Theory
Release Date: Oct 5, 2010
Story and Presentation
Its 150 years into the future and Humans are close to extinct, and robots rule the land once again. The game revolves around Monkey and Trip. It starts off with both of them escaping a Slaver ship, Without Monkey knowing, Trip enslaves Monkey with a slave headband that makes trip command him, if he resists, the headband will release a deadly dose that will kill him instantly. Trip gives Monkey a deal, she will remove the headband if he brings her home safely. Now Monkey bonded with Trip, is left with no choice. With them bonded, if trip dies, so does Monkey. And that’s where everything starts, Sounds simple enough? Hardly since Monkey and Trip will have to deal with mechs that kills anything alive. The key element in their story was how their relationship evolved as you progress. They expressed the bond between Monkey and Trip well enough to care about them.
It’s a great story, not the most original story since it’s almost identical to the classic chinese novel journey to the West. Trip is Tripitaka for short and she is a small petite red-head chick that can’t stay alive for at least a day, while Monkey, well Monkey is obviously like the Monkey King with him having a staff as a weapon that by the way shortens when not needed. He also has this yellow belt that dangles in the back making it look like he has a tail when he runs. He looks similar to a human guerilla that’s ready to pound the ground at any minute. I guess it makes sense to why he climbs the way he does. Alex Garland (28 weeks later, the beach, sunshine), wrote the story and took the concept of Journey to the west and dumped it on a post-apocalyptic world. It was well written and didn’t feel like the typical unbearable story and dialogue that games usually have.
Monkey was easily likeable. Monkey is very straight forward and when enslaved by Trip, he accepted his fate and didn’t dwell on it and quickly focused on getting trip home as soon as possible. He’s hot tempered and you’d think he won’t have much of a brain by his looks but as you progress you get a deeper sense of who he is. Trip on the other hand at the start was annoying because she screams half the time and is scared all throughout. She tones down midway into the game and both of them sooner or later develop a level of trust that makes their bond interesting. Trip is very resourceful with her tech skills and while you think she’s selfish, she’s just trying everything to get home. You will hear Trip’s story as you play but they don’t expand much on where Monkey came from. As you hit the halfway mark on Enslaved you’ll meet the Pigsy, the 3rd and last Character you’ll meet as you go through the game. Just like his name, the guy is a fat pig looking guy with a grappling hook as his right arm. He helps Monkey and Trip out and is a good addition to the group if somehow you get tired of seeing just Monkey and Trip. He gets on Monkey’s nerve most of the time and has a thing for Trip, poor Trip.
The game did a good job bringing out the personality of the Characters visually. Ninja Theory brought in Andy Serkis(Played king Kong, Gollum) to direct, motion capture and assist in writing. With him on board, I already knew the motion capture will be fantastic…..and it was. The emotions in the characters faces were impressive and the movements of the Characters weren’t clunky and dull plus the game had great voice acting. As Monkey and Trip press on getting closer to Trip’s home, Monkey gets hallucinations from the headband. As Monkey tries to keep it in you can tell he’s freaked and Trip notices and gets worried for Monkey. These emotions can be seen in the characters. Good motion capture, great voice acting, and a story worth knowing? You don’t see that every day in gaming.
Gameplay
Enslaved did great with their story and presentation but gameplay is different and you can’t run with just pure story. Fighting in Enslaved is very simple and only gets slightly interesting midway into the game when you have unlocked upgrades for monkey. The game has finishing moves that can be done on mechs that have an abnormality in them, Trip scans the enemies ahead to see if there’s anything that monkey can take advantage on. These finishers make monkey do cool looking moves to rip the enemy apart. Monkey’s normal attacks can often trigger a slow motion close up of Monkey’s final blow to that mech. Looks cool the first couple of times, but gets pointless midway into the game.
Monkey is a brute that does all the fighting while trip helps by using her computer skills to hack doors, upgrade monkeys gear and distract turrets and mechs. While I do appreciate the Prince of Persia style of play, the game doesn’t give us anything new to the table. With simple gameplay mechanics, enslaved at first glance would look repetitive during fights but the game had good pacing to keep you interested. The climbing in Enslaved may look great but is very simple as well. All climbable ledges and pipes will be shiny, so finding where to climb isn’t that hard. If you have an idea where to go, just keep pressing the jump while directing which way to jump with the stick till you reach your target.
As you progress, Monkey will soon have the ability to shoot beams out of his staff. Yea weird I know. This gives the gameplay some variety during fights. Ammo is limited so you better aim well. Let’s not forget about trip, she’s not just baggage that you must carry around to the finish line. You can give her commands to help you out. Usually when there’s a turret in the area or mechs shooting you, pinning you down, you can ask trip to create a distraction so that you can slip through and take them out. Aside from making distractions, trip can heal Monkey, use a mini EMP when mechs get close to her and can upgrade Monkey’s gear.
The upgrades are the usual improvements seen in a game like this. On my first play through I was able to get 90% of the upgrades so it’s not very deep. The upgrades give new moves but the rest are mostly improving stuff you already have. Like more ammo for your staff, a longer charge move, more life, more shields, wider sweep, etc. One more thing you can do in enslaved is that Monkey has this device called the cloud which works like a floating disc for him to ride. It works only in some areas in the game and is mostly used for open areas and chase scenes that involve monkey saving trip. A good touch and pretty cool to play around with.
The boss fights in Enslaved were forgettable, nothing epic about them. There isn’t that much boss fights to begin with really, I can only count a handful of them and are easy to take out. So yes you’ve guessed it, it’s a very easy game and take note I started the game on hard difficulty and still felt easy. The one thing that bothered me the most was The Camera angles, during the whole game I was literally going against the camera. The Camera is too close to Monkey! When I start attacking or do some takedown move I always find myself moving the camera left or right after the attack to get a better angle.
Graphics and Sound
The game provides top-notch graphics. No problems here, the game looks fantastic from start to end. This is the first time I’ve seen a post-apocalyptic setting that isn’t all sand and junk, thank god! The world is colorful and vibrant. You can sense the age of the area and can tell that nature has taken over. The game brings you to all different kinds of local, from the old and dying New York City to a wasteland that inhabits old junk and water mixed with mech fuel that are deadly when touched. The sound score of this game is also well made, it fits perfectly to the setting they were trying to present. There were occasional parts though that I encountered were the dialogue didn’t sync with the lips of the characters and I’ve experienced sound disappearing in a chase scene.
By now, we know that the game has horrible camera angles. Aside from the camera making the fights a pain, you have a hard time looking around to appreciate how well they developed this game. There are parts of the game where you get a chance to look on how great the game looks but with how well they created this world, I wish I could enjoy it anytime with ease. I literally paused one time and said “wow…pretttyyy…..”. I paused for a minute and took in that awesome view. You can tell they took a lot of time and effort into creating this world. If only there were better camera angles….
Overall
It’s been awhile since we’ve been blessed with a game that pulls you in with their story and their Characters, providing a good pace that keeps you hooked till the end. You play it, think its tons fun and when you’re done with, it gives you this lasting satisfaction that you gave it a chance. Ninja Theory should stick to the story-driven concept for their games and improve on it, they have a good thing going here and soon they will give us a game that might just blow us away. I was hoping this game would be it but sadly it wasn’t. This game is 11 hours long only and doesn’t provide any Multiplayer feature or anything after you’ve finished the game. Is it worth the buy? I say yes, it’s worth the experience and everybody should give it a go. but sadly with only the single player and no replay value (unless you’re an achievement junkie) People will have a hard time paying full price for this title.
Score: 75/100