Green Lantern Blu-Ray Includes A Yellow Batman For Arkham City

Superhero flicks have become a common thing in summer boxoffices. With almost every cape doning, web throwing, suit wearing, and ring bearing hero having their own big screen blast every year, it's no surprise why old heroes are getting new iterations in both the movie and video game franchise.

This year's Green Latern movie has come and gone but will be seeing a Blu-ray release come October 14th. The sequel to the highly acclaimed Arkham Assylum comes out 4 days after. What's the connection you ask? The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack and the Blu-ray Combo Pack will include an access code to unlock the Sinestro Corps Batman skin in Arkham City for use in both the story mode and challenge maps. The code is only usable on the PS3 version of Batman: Arkham City.

Batman user FEAR... It's super effective!

Impressions: Age of Conan: Unleashed didin't last...

When I heard that Age of Conan was going free to play, I decided that it might be a good idea to try it out now. Since it had a monthly before(and at the time I was on WoW) I didn't bother trying it out. Now that it's free to play, me and two of my friends decided to give it a try. Why not right? Well let's just say it didn't last long.

I tried to like it......

Ok, I did have the impression that Age of Conan is a bad MMO already, but since it was on a free to play model i thought that experiencing it first-hand might change that. Certain games that are considered horrible for most are amazing for some players, it's just preference, that's just how it is. So i gave Age of Conan a chance, see if its unique melee system and the world of Conan can amuse me. Well not only was it a brutal game with gore and finishing moves, it's also brutal to play.

I tried liking it, I tried staying positive all throughout, but there are so many aspects of the game that lead to frustration. Playing World of Warcraft for around 2 years made me expect a lot from MMORPGs nowadays, so expectations we're pretty high. But expecting a lot from Age of Conan is only a fraction of why this game couldn't even last 3 days on my PC.

The combat felt similar to any MMO but with more skills to press of your melee. There's no auto attack that most people are used to,  they have this melee system where you perform a normal attack by pressing it like a skill on your hotkeys. You have 3 kinds of normal attack which makes you do a normal attack from the left side, right side or an overhead.  So yea, melee is constantly in the move and pressing their hotkeys to keep the action going. Seems cool enough at the start, but from the feedback i got from my friends joining me in this out of the blue trip, its unique system got tiresome in just the three days we played.

Nothing clicked

I literally was bored in just a few hours playing with my friends, and that's already with a group. I imagine the experience would have been worse if I tackled Age of Conan alone. Even with two good friends looking for a good time wasn't enough to keep Age of Conan interesting.  I was playing the healer class of the game, my prefered class, and only played when my friends are online and ready to kill some barbarians. We did some quests and skipped through all the voiced conversations. Yes, they seem to be all voiced with choices coming out of an Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age game, only this time, your choices don't matter at all. Aside from the "I have to go" choice which obviously ends the conversations, everything else leads you to earning the quest or leading to the same conclusion in the conversation.

It was a good touch that Funcom made each quest voiced and making the player I guess, more involved in the conversation. I still find myself skipping through the conversations just like how I don't read the quest descriptions in other games, only read what to kill or what to escort. It's the same deal. Put voice and choices, but if it isn't interesting to begin with, it just becomes a waste of effort.

We hit level 15, going through the town, grabbing quests, looking barbarian-ish with no clothes on, and noticed we were just forcing ourselves to play it. We were all connected through Skype, but not of us we're talking already. We complained so much about certain features more than excited to head for the next quest. There wasn't enough in Age of Conan: Unchained to keep us going, which is sad because we were just in day 3 of when we installed the game. It felt dull and knowing that we have 65 levels(level 80 is the max) to go before hitting end game content made us call quits. "65 more levels of this??" that's what we asked ourselves and instantly uninstalled Age of Conan.

You might be thinking that we didn't give much of a chance, well maybe. Maybe in the later levels, more interesting things will open up, or maybe the high level content is more exciting that the starting ones. One thing is for certain though, first impressions do last, and the content given for starting characters isn't appealing enough for you to aim for the higher levels.

Looking ahead....

Age of Conan: Unchained is done for me. Well, the whole MMO genre as a whole is behind me. There's not much interest left in there. Everything seems similar nowadays, making the experience bland. Even World of Warcraft isn't worth going back to. But I haven't given up on the  genre just yet. Guild Wars 2 is still far away but definitely looks like a game changer. The game islooking to be the game I'll be investing hours and hours of game time just like the good old WoW days. Guild Wars 2 is most likely somewhere mid next year. It's fine, I can wait. i'll be steering away from MMO games until then...

Arkham City Robin gets some extra costumes

Now we all know that Robin will be a playable character in the challenge maps and that his mentor, the dark knight himself, will be having alternate costumes to be obtained via pre-order. Looks like the boy wonder will be having a few wardrobe changes as well.

The hooded Robin is something we have already seen when he was first revealed. Along with that look, he will also have a Red Robin skin and one from the Animated Series.

Two Best Friends Play: Captain America Super Soldier

I love how Matt immitates the narrators in old 40's videos. Wow, it's just like Sucker Punch! AMERICAAAA!

The best friends continue their epic journey to troll each other via electronic video games until one of them dies, or takes down the Third Reich using only a vibranium shield and good ol' fashion American know-how.

I have the Wii version of Captain America done by High Volage software. I might be playing that on the feed sometime to see how it compares.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z4NKRTo4MQ&w=560&h=345

Gears of War 3: We're All Stranded Now

Good news, Gears of War 3 has finally gone gold people. Mass production of the game is underway. Epic Games celebrated the game a few days ago by cutting cake with a Retro Lancer, at the same time releasing the opening cinematic for Gears of War 3. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EQ-fQoDXwA

I've played Gears of War 1 and 2 with a friends Xbox 360 so I'm up to date with whats happening in the story. Timing is perfect. Now that I have my very own Xbox 360, getting Gears of War 3 when it comes out on Sept 20 is an option now. Can't wait! Only thing that can stop me now from buying this on day one is if it actually get's delayed here in the Philippines. Delay is always a possibility if your planning to get your copy from retail stores. Hopefully this won't be the case for this title.