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Amnesia: The Dark Descent Demo – Nightmare Fuel

Connor — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:09:16 +0000

I’m a big fan of Frictional Games ever since I got their previous horror title Penumbra: Overture in the Humble Indie Bundle, and so when a demo for their upcoming Amnesia: The Dark Descent hit Steam, I knew I had to get it.

I finally decided to man up and play it last night. See, I don’t do incredibly well with horror games… I tense up and get scared too easily. But Frictional Games’ titles have such amazing depth and such a great story that it’s more than getting scared half to death. (Not to mention, I was playing with my brother and my friend. That helps, too.)

From the get-go I realized one thing that I liked very much; the gameplay is incredibly similar to the Penumbra titles. I always loved how much control you had over everything in Penumbra; a door didn’t open just by clicking it, you had to click it and drag it all the way open. I feel this adds a lot of suspense, and it’s just fun. Luckily, they kept it in Amnesia.

Another thing that I noticed is a new sanity meter in your inventory. In Amnesia, you have to stay near a source of light, or your sanity starts to fade. As this happens, there are noticeable visual changes, such as the world starting to “breathe,” with the walls and everything else in your vision expanding, retracting, and shifting around. It’s an awesome visual effect, and is something I could imagine adding a lot to the full game in the name of suspense and urgency.

The demo itself isn’t terribly scary, but the potential it shows is outstanding. There was one part, however, where I did get quite tense, and might have even stopped playing had I been alone.

Now, I’m not going to tell you exactly what happened, but I’ll give you a tip for if you want to try the demo out — Stay out of the water.

I, for one, can say that I’ll definitely be picking up Amnesia when it’s released. Horror games like this are a great group activity for me, and occasionally an interesting thing to do alone.

In two days, the 8th of September, it will be on sale for $20, but if you preorder now you can save 10%, or $2.

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The Next Year in Gaming

Connor — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:54:36 +0000

Now, I know most websites do a post like this in the beginning of the year, but this post on Reddit made me think about it a bit today.

I’ll give you a list here of some of the more notable games coming out in the next year that I’m really looking forward to. It’s shaping up to be a great 365 days. (Note: Some of these might just have a “2011″ release date, but I’ll count them in anyway.)

Portal 2 (X360 / PS3 / PC / OS X)

Portal is my favourite game of all time. (Actually tied with Diablo II for that title.) The clever puzzle mechanics, hilarious omnipotent narrator, and surprisingly in-depth story (if you choose to look far enough into it) all make it a fantastic game that anybody who hasn’t played should be ashamed. Portal 2 is a sequel (previously rumoured to be a prequel) that’s up for release in 2011. (Hopefully early 2011. Or hyper-early 2011, in that it’ll be released in 2010.) There will be behind-the-scenes areas of the game, as well as GLaDOS making a return with co-operative mode.
I can’t wait to see how the co-op shapes up. The puzzles will likely require massive amounts of teamwork, which will be satisfying. I just don’t want to share the cake.

Star Wars: The Old Republic PC

Being a huge Star Wars fan, any Star Wars videogame tickles my fancy quite easily. But a Star Wars MMORPG? Hell. Yes.

The Old Republic looks pretty awesome, from what little gameplay footage has surfaced. All of the classes that will be available just make me giddy, not to mention the fact that any class will be fully customizable. So, if you choose a Smuggler, you can still train your fighting skills as well as anything else you’d like. You’re not locked into a specific skillset, which I like. It’s already won a couple of awards from GameTrailers for its E3 appearance, and shows a lot of potential as not only a Star Wars videogame, but a game changer in the MMO industry.

It’s release date is set as “2011,” but I’ve also read “Autumn 2011.” Hopefully it comes earlier in the year, but we’ll see.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (X360 / PS3 / PC / Wii / DS / iOS)

(Sorry about the logo for the first Force Unleashed — I couldn’t find one for the second that fit the format.)

As I mentioned above, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. As such, I greatly enjoyed The Force Unleashed through-and-through — The story was fantastic (and the main character’s name being “Starkiller” was also awesome, as that was Luke’s last name in the first draft of the A New Hope script), the gameplay was awesome, the force upgrades were useful, and it all tied together perfectly. My brother, also a big Star Wars fan, says that he’ll have to buy a PS3 just to get this game. (He played the first on his Playstation 2.)

The story in the second title will focus more on Starkiller, which I think is awesome. He’s a very good character, but he wasn’t developed quite as much as I would have liked in the first game. The plot will focus on deception, betrayal, and revenge, much as part of the first game. Seeing as this takes place just a year before A New Hope, I’m hoping that most of the loose ends in the story will be tied up, otherwise that we’ll be left open for yet another sequel. (Maybe some of that’s already been done in the novel / comic books, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.)

Torchlight 2 (PC / OS X)

Torchlight was a fantastic game — it’s created by many of the same men and women that worked on Diablo and Diablo II, so it clones the series incredibly well down to town portals and identifying items the exact same way. I loved the graphical style as well as the pets system… It served as a great distraction while I wait for Diablo III to never come out. (I’m not even going to bother posting about Diablo III here, that seems too hopeful…)

Well, a sequel was recently announced. I think my favourite part of this announcement is the inclusion of co-op gameplay. (Finally!) While I love lone dungeon-crawlers, it’s always more fun to play through with a friend, and it’s been a rumoured upcoming feature of Torchlight for a while now. Well, it’s coming in the next game.

There will also be added mod support, which will blow the possibilities of this game open wide. The modding community on the PC has always been huge and incredibly crafty, so I naturally can’t wait to see what they come up with to make this game even better. We’re set to see all of this come Spring 2011. (Let’s just hope its release doesn’t interfere too much with that of Diablo III, or the developers may find themselves poor.)

That pretty much sums up the games I’m most looking forward to within the next year. There are a few that I’m also excited to see, such as Black Mesa and L.A. Noire, but the above titles are the ones that I’m phenomenally excited about… The ones that will make my friends and family wonder if I’m dead, not seeing the light of day for weeks.

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Kane & Lynch 2′s New Trailer Looks Promising

Connor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 02:53:50 +0000

The original Kane & Lynch game, entitled “Dead Men,” came out late 2007 to much critical insult and generally negative reviews, both among popular outlets and individual reviewers. It was praised for its cinematic stylings and fun multiplayer game types, but bashed on a constant basis for outdated gameplay and lack of depth/polish. Many reviewers agreed: It would have been a decent game if it had been worked on a bit longer. It had potential, but failed to live up to it.

Well, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is looking to patch up the title after three years since the initial release. The second iteration focuses more on gritty realism and, without a doubt, looks to improve gameplay elements that were so frustratingly used to advise against purchase back in ’07.

They released a new trailer today for the second game, and I’ve gotta say… It looks pretty sweet. You can check out the trailer at the bottom of the post, but first, allow me to delve into it a bit…

Now, I’ve never played the original, mainly because of the bad reviews. It doesn’t seem like something worthy of my money, and so I haven’t picked it up. But going off nothing but the reviews, it seems as if the second game has improved a good bit above the first, which is evident even in this trailer.

There are tidbits of what appears to be gameplay shown throughout, mostly at the end. The cinematic quality of the trailer is fantastic. One thing that bugs me, however, is their censorship… I’m fine with censoring your trailers. I’m even fine with you adding content to the trailers, knowing that it will HAVE to be censored. But be consistent with it!
Through the trailer, several “bad words” are bleeped out. Except for at one point, when one of the characters manages to scream out “DON’T F*CK WITH ME!” after throwing an explosive. This came directly after like, two or three bleeps, so it confused me a good bit.

Past that, the gameplay actually looks pretty fun. It looks like it has a pretty good cover system, which is important in any game that relies even a little bit on cover. The sound is also superb throughout. Great-sounding gunshots and breaking glass plague this trailer, along with cinematic “swoosh”s that help carry things along.

And the graphics look fantastic! Honestly, even though I’m aware most of this is probably pre-rendered, it all looks great. The clothing has amazing detail in it, and the environment around our characters looks amazing (especially one part in the trailer, where they’re in a kitchen. Everything in there looks freakin’ beautiful).

One thing that still confuses me is why IO Interactive went from the clever stealth series Hitman to a blatantly over-the-top action series such as Kane & Lynch. Put more work into Hitman 5!
That aside, this game really does look pretty sweet. This is one that I’ll probably sit on for a bit before getting it, to see if it’s been improved, but when it comes down to it, I could see myself getting this game.

After some searching, I can’t seem to find this trailer on Youtube, and can’t get the GT.TV video to embed correctly, so just click here to be taken to the trailer.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Trailer Debut

Connor — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:02:21 +0000

The upcoming seventh game in the Call of Duty series (entitled Call of Duty: Black Ops) was announced a few days ago, for release on November 11th this year. It’s being developed by Treyarch (of Call of Duty 3 and World at War infamy). Let’s hope they don’t screw up this time.

Well, the trailer was revealed last night (first on Spike TV, then a few hours later on the official Black Ops website). The short video clips in the trailer show several different locations as well as a variety of weaponry. It’s a bit hard to really tell what’s going on most of the time, as everything happens very quickly. However, in the beginning of the trailer, it looks like you’re in some sort of operating room. You hear a man say “This should help you remember everything…” And then you see several clips of warfare.
This leads me to believe that the bulk of the game is in flashback form. You’re just controlling the memories of this person (sorta like Assassin’s Creed, kinda).
It’s an interesting theory, and I’m looking forward to seeing how accurate it is.

On GAME’s webpage for the game, they had a description up (now removed) that may have jumped the shark in a huge way. It said,

Now you will witness the birth of the Elite Special Forces and take part in off-the-record missions using unconventional weaponry to get the job done. From Cuba to the Arctic and the jungles of Vietnam, Call of Duty: Black Ops features stunning cinematic graphics and intense gameplay that puts you right at the heart of the action!

The way the last sentence is put makes me believe that this game may not just be a copy/paste of Modern Warfare 2 with a different setting, like World at War was to the original Modern Warfare.
While I am looking forward to this game… Keep in mind, this is Treyarch. Don’t get your hopes up too high for anything game-changing or really significantly different from the last iteration at all.

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Skate 3 Demo Rolls Onto PSN & XBL [In-Depth Look]

Connor — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:52:47 +0000

EA’s game-changing “Skate” series (the creative force that pushed Activision’s hand in a terrible, terrible move to “fight back” with Tony Hawk: Ride) has just had a new demo release on Xbox Live and Playstation Network. “Skate 3,” which hits stores May 11th, now has a playable singleplayer and multiplayer demo for all of us to enjoy.

The demo starts off with Coach Frank (a character with the incredibly and instantly recognizable voice of Jason Lee, or “Earl” from “My Name is Earl”) helping you get started. If you’re familiar with the Skate franchise at this point, this should be no problem.

At this point, I noticed that the physics in this game feel slightly more snappy than in the previous installments. Not sure if I’m seeing something that’s not there, possibly due to my lack of playing a Skate game in quite some time, but everything feels much more responsive, especially the flip tricks.

Frank’s got some annoying things that he says over and over. Each time he chuckles, while I grumble under my breath, cursing the writers for not coming up with some more one-liners for him to blurt when you screw up.
Whatever. His short-shorts and knee-highs make it worthwhile.

You get the low-down on controlling your board, ollies, flip tricks, grinds… The list goes on and on. Then you get to do some missions.

There’s a really fun one, when the only goal is to bail off your board after airing off the roof of a library.
Skate 3 introduces a really awesome and graphic way of showing injuries, giving an x-ray effect on your body as you crunch and crash into the ground. Only on the bones that are affected, though. It looks sweet.
The mission has you do several different poses as you fall to your demise. The bone-breaking sound effects are better than ever. I’ve cringed a few times. I love it. When they had me do the spread-eagle pose, I landed straight on my stomach. My spine, head, and one leg broke. I’m hooked.

When I got to the free skate, I felt like a child in a candy store. I was pulling off tricks that make real-life pro skaters look like novices, and I was loving every second of it. Until I reached the demo’s boundaries.
Fine, whatever. I understand, I can only explore so much. (Even though there are some pretty awesome looking spots RIGHT outside the boundaries. Good strategy, EA. I tip my hat to you.) But then I got a “Demo Expires In” counter after a little while. That’s a bit of a bummer. It doesn’t really stop me from playing the demo more, it just makes it so that I have to keep launching it again and again.

Oh well. I finished up with my allotted trial time, trying to get in an awesome trick or two before the timer hit zero. And then I relaunched the demo to — Wait, what?
After the timer runs out, it just restarts me at the first mission, without me having to relaunch the demo myself?
I have developed a newfound and intense love for Electronic Arts. Thank you.

With my auto-extended time, I decided to give the multiplayer a shot. I hopped on the Playstation Network and connected to a game of Domination. I happen to also be at a different location, which is nice.
Two teams, red and blue, are pitted against each-other to “own” a spot, by scoring the most points on it. My team won (obviously), and it was a really good time. Like always, Skate conquers online play. Probably much more fun with friends than with strangers, but I still had a lot of fun with it.

The other mode of online play available in the demo is called “Own The Lot.” The description for this one says “So many activities! Try to complete as many of them as you can to own all the lots!”
Unfortunately, I was unable to try this one out. I joined several games with the intent of playing a round, but everybody just treated it as Free Skate and never started the session. Sounds like fun, but I guess I won’t know for now.

There’s also a level editor in place for the game. I haven’t touched this too much… I guess it’s useful if you want to set up tricks and whatnot, but I just tend to enjoy working with what I’ve got and seeing what I can pull off. Regardless, that’s a nice feature if you’re into taking time to set things up.

All in all, this demo’s a load of fun. I was a huge fan of the first two installments, and this one keeps the fun going. It doesn’t seem like they’ve added anything new that’s really game-changing or revolutionary, but they don’t have to. They’ve got a great formula with this series, and some slight updates and added features make the new game worthwhile.
This is one I’ll be picking up shortly after release (or, at the very least, giving it the longest Gamefly rental ever, and THEN buying it).
Check out the demo when you can; it’s worth your time.

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2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa: Game Trailer

GameMaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:00:51 +0000

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2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (PlayStation 3) (Video Game)

Here is the official trailer for 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, from EA Sports. It is the only official and exclusively licensed video game for the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa. The game is due out on April 27, 2010 in the North American market and April 30, 2010 in Europe and Asia. It will be available for the PS3, Xbox, Nintendo Wii and the PSP. Unfortunately for all the PC gamers it does not look like it will be released for the PC any time soon. EA Sports 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will feature all 199 national teams that took part in qualifications and all 10 official stadiums which are to be used in the South African games, as well as the stadiums for each qualifying region. The level of detail in this game looks incredible, there is even confetti rain, streamers and fireworks. Gamers will be able to compete in an online World Cup tournament and play as the country of their choice from qualification all the way up to the Word Cup Final. The game features group stages, knockout rounds and the home and away strategies for every participating country. The game also features realistic altitude effects which influence how players get fatigued as well as the flight of the ball.
List Price:	$29.99 USD
New From:	$14.90 In Stock
Used from:	$8.93 In Stock
Release date April 27, 2010.

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Grim Little Red Riding Hood

Kraven — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:21:10 +0000

The famous developer of games: American McGee, has started working on a gory version of Little Red Riding Hood, and has published concept art for this new game in progress.

On his Flickr page the games creator posted:

“This is something Ken Wong and I have been working on for years – a concept built on “Little Red Riding Hood”

Truth be told, this Little Red Riding Hood kicks butt! The imagery that was shown, comes from the folks at Spicy Horse Games Studio, and was created by the hands of graphical artist Luis Melo, another legendary name in the gaming industry, and features our ‘Little Red’ as a small white haired girl wielding a giant Axe, while driving it deep into the skull of a giant bad ass looking Wolf. After looking at this we will be anxiously awaiting news on the game-play, and weapon combos that will be put into the game. From the looks of it, there are lots of possibilities in that area.

If this is how Sweet Little Red Riding Hood looks, we can’t wait to see what they will do with the character of the hunter!

This game, based on the fairy tale, promises to be a lot more grim than the movies, and certainly will not be Disney material! Lots of blood and gore, if the concept art published is anything, like the game is going to be.

No information was given about release dates, or through which company the game would possibly be released for that matter. American McGee is currently hard at work on his second adult Alice In Wonderland game, and expressed hope to be able to get to work on Little Red Riding Hood, after finishing Alice 2. The only concrete information given was that discussions with several publishers are still in progress.

Oh my, grandmother what a great weapon arsenal you have!

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