Ack, I almost forgot to make a post today. Shadows of the Damned came out today:
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
The game looks fun. It has the over the shoulder shooter gameplay that Resident Evil 4 and 5 did but much more faster paced. There are a lot of weapons involved too. Maybe I'll check this game out once it goes down in price.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
VGCulture - Free2Play Valve Game
So there's speculation, nay, a confirmed response from Valve that they're going to release a game with the micro-transaction business model. Last week, Valve launched their news of hosting free-to-play online games on the Steam platform. I tried them and realized you still have to create an account on each individual publisher's site. It doesn't change that much other than having the services of Valve's Steam program such as Steam messenger/voice chat, easier downloads, achievements, and such. It sure made it easier for me to download the games I wanted to play (namely Forsaken World and Spiral Knights).
Source: Youtube Channel HirezStudios
So it's been confirmed that a free-to-play game is going to release, but what kind of game is it? The speculation now is that it's going to be Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2). A while ago, Icefrog of one of the original designers for DotA on the Warcraft 3 engine was announced to have been hired by Valve to work on a game with them. Shortly after, the term "DotA" was copyrighted by Valve. So the possibility that Valve's DotA 2 is likely to be the free-to-play game. This has me excited, I was planning on buying it but wasn't sure if I would play it all too often. Without having to pay for it, I won't have to worry about playing enough of it to make it worth the amount I paid for. I'm really not sure how the rest of the gaming community will react to this. Sure, there are a lot of DotA fans and players, but there's a lot of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth players that didn't start from DotA. We won't know how this will turn out. Only time will tell.
Source: Youtube Channel HirezStudios
So it's been confirmed that a free-to-play game is going to release, but what kind of game is it? The speculation now is that it's going to be Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA 2). A while ago, Icefrog of one of the original designers for DotA on the Warcraft 3 engine was announced to have been hired by Valve to work on a game with them. Shortly after, the term "DotA" was copyrighted by Valve. So the possibility that Valve's DotA 2 is likely to be the free-to-play game. This has me excited, I was planning on buying it but wasn't sure if I would play it all too often. Without having to pay for it, I won't have to worry about playing enough of it to make it worth the amount I paid for. I'm really not sure how the rest of the gaming community will react to this. Sure, there are a lot of DotA fans and players, but there's a lot of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth players that didn't start from DotA. We won't know how this will turn out. Only time will tell.
Friday, June 17, 2011
GameLight - F.E.A.R. 3
Official Site: http://www.whatisfear.com/#/en/home/
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
FEAR 3 comes out in 3 days, and so Steam has a weekend deal for pre-orders and for the FEAR collection pack which includes FEAR 1 & 2 with 2 DLCs for $9.99 I've never played any of the FEAR games but was told that it was really good. I'm not too fond of horror games, but I do have an interest in them. I like horror games lot more than I do than horror movies. In the movies, you have a dumb cast of kids who run towards the danger. Yeah, it's scary, but it usually frustrates me watching the characters do things they shouldn't do. In horror games, you have control over the situations and are more involved (at least that's I usually feel). I like the Resident Evil series mainly because I like the story and suspense. The gore isn't excessive and doesn't make me feel queasy or sick. Dead Space was sort of violent, but it was also a hilarious game being able to chop off legs and be able to throw them back at the enemy. FEAR is a FPS horror game, and so it feels pretty awesome to be able to shoot at monstrosities rather than be defenseless. FEAR 3 seems to allow the player to be the one that others fear as well as being the victim. So far, the trailers and videos look good. I'm possibly going to buy the $10 FEAR collection and try out the first two games. And if you want the most out of the experience, you can follow one of my friend's advice by turning off the lights, play on a wide screen TV with surround sound, and play it by yourself. I did that a lot for Doom 3 (got kinda boring) and Dead Space (that was fun). In any case, I'm not a huge fan of FEAR (at least not yet) so I don't think I'll be getting FEAR 3. Maybe I will in the future when I've decided whether I like the series or not from the first two.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
FEAR 3 comes out in 3 days, and so Steam has a weekend deal for pre-orders and for the FEAR collection pack which includes FEAR 1 & 2 with 2 DLCs for $9.99 I've never played any of the FEAR games but was told that it was really good. I'm not too fond of horror games, but I do have an interest in them. I like horror games lot more than I do than horror movies. In the movies, you have a dumb cast of kids who run towards the danger. Yeah, it's scary, but it usually frustrates me watching the characters do things they shouldn't do. In horror games, you have control over the situations and are more involved (at least that's I usually feel). I like the Resident Evil series mainly because I like the story and suspense. The gore isn't excessive and doesn't make me feel queasy or sick. Dead Space was sort of violent, but it was also a hilarious game being able to chop off legs and be able to throw them back at the enemy. FEAR is a FPS horror game, and so it feels pretty awesome to be able to shoot at monstrosities rather than be defenseless. FEAR 3 seems to allow the player to be the one that others fear as well as being the victim. So far, the trailers and videos look good. I'm possibly going to buy the $10 FEAR collection and try out the first two games. And if you want the most out of the experience, you can follow one of my friend's advice by turning off the lights, play on a wide screen TV with surround sound, and play it by yourself. I did that a lot for Doom 3 (got kinda boring) and Dead Space (that was fun). In any case, I'm not a huge fan of FEAR (at least not yet) so I don't think I'll be getting FEAR 3. Maybe I will in the future when I've decided whether I like the series or not from the first two.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
GameLight - Duke Nukem Forever
Ah, I've been so busy the past two days that I didn't even get to do a post yesterday. I start work right away and then when I get off I'm already going out again. Oh well, I don't want to make a long post today. So Duke Nukem Forever came out (for reals!) and it got a lot of mixed ratings.
Source: Youtube Channel Dragornl
The Xbox 360 version has already got down to the red zone on metacritic with a 49/100 average. I think it's just the long wait of 14 years that built up too much anticipation and expectations that ruined the experience for a lot of gamers. I was always more interested in the 2D Duke Nukem games so I don't have too much interest or expectations for the game. Whether it's truly fun or not is unknown to me, but it's worth a try for those who are faithful to the series I guess? Anyways, I don't think I'll be touching this game since I don't have too much interest in it, but I'm not going to say that it's because it's a bad game.
Source: Youtube Channel Dragornl
The Xbox 360 version has already got down to the red zone on metacritic with a 49/100 average. I think it's just the long wait of 14 years that built up too much anticipation and expectations that ruined the experience for a lot of gamers. I was always more interested in the 2D Duke Nukem games so I don't have too much interest or expectations for the game. Whether it's truly fun or not is unknown to me, but it's worth a try for those who are faithful to the series I guess? Anyways, I don't think I'll be touching this game since I don't have too much interest in it, but I'm not going to say that it's because it's a bad game.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
VGCulture - Free Online Games on the Steam Platform
Great news for those who play a lot of Free-to-Play MMOs: Steam will be supporting Free MMOs from various publishers on their Steam platform. Why is this good? Gamers who play a lot of free MMOs know that client downloads can become a hassle with slow rates, corrupted files, and finding the latest versions. If you're a publisher of free online games, you'll know that it's sometimes difficult to get your games to the players who are actually interested in playing them because of how convoluted the market for Free MMOs, and even more: the internet, is that a lot of potential players overlook it.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
Well Valve's Steam platform will help reach out to their 30 million active users and help those interested download it with ease on the program rather than trying to find a download host that has the latest version with no viruses on them. Right off the bat, five games are available:
-Spiral Knights (Sega)
-Forsaken World (Perfect World)
-Alliance of Valiant Arms (Ijji)
-Champions Online: Free For All (Perfect World - they now own Cryptic Studios)
-Global Agenda: Free Agent (Hi-Rez Studios)
There has been a lot of speculations that Free MMOs don't have the quality of paid subscriptions and that most free online games are not worth the time. Not entirely true as aspiring developers work hard to provide the best online gaming experience for the player to choose to spend money or not and still make a profit. All five games are of the highest quality in terms of MMOs (though I haven't tried the first two, but now I will since it's easier to download on Steam) and I recommend trying them out. Yes, you may have to sacrifice some time to try it out, but at least money isn't an issue.
Those who download and play the games will receive special in-game items. This hasn't been made clear, but I'm guessing it's for those who play the games on Steam. Details on what registered users get if they even get anything haven't been reported. From what I know thus far, players can log into the games using their accounts from their respective publishers, use their steam account to log in, or link their steam accounts with the account with their publishers. I am mostly glad about being able to have a fast and efficient way to download the games. More Free MMOs will be available on the Steam platform later on.
Sources:
-Gamasutra - 'Free-To-Play' Model Arrives On Steam
-Joystiq - You're free to play these free-to-play games through Steam
-Kotaku - Steam Goes Free to Play
-Steam - Free To Play Games Have Arrived on Steam
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
Well Valve's Steam platform will help reach out to their 30 million active users and help those interested download it with ease on the program rather than trying to find a download host that has the latest version with no viruses on them. Right off the bat, five games are available:
-Spiral Knights (Sega)
-Forsaken World (Perfect World)
-Alliance of Valiant Arms (Ijji)
-Champions Online: Free For All (Perfect World - they now own Cryptic Studios)
-Global Agenda: Free Agent (Hi-Rez Studios)
There has been a lot of speculations that Free MMOs don't have the quality of paid subscriptions and that most free online games are not worth the time. Not entirely true as aspiring developers work hard to provide the best online gaming experience for the player to choose to spend money or not and still make a profit. All five games are of the highest quality in terms of MMOs (though I haven't tried the first two, but now I will since it's easier to download on Steam) and I recommend trying them out. Yes, you may have to sacrifice some time to try it out, but at least money isn't an issue.
Those who download and play the games will receive special in-game items. This hasn't been made clear, but I'm guessing it's for those who play the games on Steam. Details on what registered users get if they even get anything haven't been reported. From what I know thus far, players can log into the games using their accounts from their respective publishers, use their steam account to log in, or link their steam accounts with the account with their publishers. I am mostly glad about being able to have a fast and efficient way to download the games. More Free MMOs will be available on the Steam platform later on.
Sources:
-Gamasutra - 'Free-To-Play' Model Arrives On Steam
-Joystiq - You're free to play these free-to-play games through Steam
-Kotaku - Steam Goes Free to Play
-Steam - Free To Play Games Have Arrived on Steam
Monday, June 13, 2011
GameLight - Dungeon Siege 3
I'm not sure if the demo for Dungeon Siege 3 is out for consoles yet, but Steam has the download for PC gamers. So anyways, Dungeon Siege 3 is very different from its predecessors: Different developer, different publisher, different story, but the same title. You could change the title of the game and no one would accuse the developers of being a copy of Dungeon Siege. It's not a bad thing though. The gameplay did change from being more team-managing strategical RPG to more hack-n-slash action RPG, so it may displease many avid Dungeon Siege fans. But for those looking for a fun co-op action RPG to play, Dungeon Siege 3 provides the goods to satisfy those needs.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
The demo may not have showed enough of the game, but the progression of levels felt extremely linear compared to the first two Dungeon Siege games. Perhaps it eventually evolves into that level of open world gameplay, but the demo mostly shuffles the player along a narrow path to get from one event to another. The story is told with conversations and cinematics with the dialogue wheel seen in previous titles from Obsidian such as Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Alpha Protocol. The graphics are okay, but I couldn't really say with having to turn the resolution down to run the game smoothly. The gameplay was interesting that you have full control when attacking (aim direction, click to attack in said direction) rather than just point-n-click (click and watch them attack an enemy). The controls; however, seems to be designed for console controllers rather than keyboard and mouse. The camera controls, attacking, and movement are atrocious using keyboard and mouse as it's archaic and difficult to coordinate. This makes combat rather difficult when it's hard to see where the player is going or if there is space to dodge an attack. The game itself is fun though. Combat is fast-paced, skill and equipment managing retains the RPG aspects, and the enemies are pretty challenging. I'm thinking of getting the game on PS3. I hear it has a local co-op mode so that a buddy can join in and help control one of the AI allies. The game feels a lot more like a Gauntlet game than a Diablo-ish game. No complaints here though, the game is fun.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
The demo may not have showed enough of the game, but the progression of levels felt extremely linear compared to the first two Dungeon Siege games. Perhaps it eventually evolves into that level of open world gameplay, but the demo mostly shuffles the player along a narrow path to get from one event to another. The story is told with conversations and cinematics with the dialogue wheel seen in previous titles from Obsidian such as Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Alpha Protocol. The graphics are okay, but I couldn't really say with having to turn the resolution down to run the game smoothly. The gameplay was interesting that you have full control when attacking (aim direction, click to attack in said direction) rather than just point-n-click (click and watch them attack an enemy). The controls; however, seems to be designed for console controllers rather than keyboard and mouse. The camera controls, attacking, and movement are atrocious using keyboard and mouse as it's archaic and difficult to coordinate. This makes combat rather difficult when it's hard to see where the player is going or if there is space to dodge an attack. The game itself is fun though. Combat is fast-paced, skill and equipment managing retains the RPG aspects, and the enemies are pretty challenging. I'm thinking of getting the game on PS3. I hear it has a local co-op mode so that a buddy can join in and help control one of the AI allies. The game feels a lot more like a Gauntlet game than a Diablo-ish game. No complaints here though, the game is fun.
Friday, June 10, 2011
VGCulture - Reflection on E3 2011
Honestly, this was a long week for me. I've been sick for the past week, had a lot of work to do, and seem to be lacking in strength despite going to sleep earlier now. For E3, it was fast like always. In 3 days, over 700 games were announced, showcased, and demoed at the floor show of the LA Convention Center. Here are some of my choice highlights of this year's E3 2011:
Dark Souls
I was already excited to hear about a sequel to Demon's Souls, but to watch some of the gameplay and hear about some of the changes between its predecessors and its current state was a total treat:
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
Dark Souls is sure to deliver a compelling experience as Demon's Souls did with challenging gameplay, monstrous bosses, and epic multiplayer quests and PVP. This is one game I'm definitely going to buy.
Nintendo Wii U
So it's not a big surprise that Nintendo came out with a new system as speculations have raised such rumors since the end of last year. Even with confirmed reports of Nintendo having a touch screen on their new controller, the system was a really big buzz and had an impression on me as well as many others. I guess I'm excited about it since I'm hoping for more developers working on Nintendo systems once again for 3DS as well as the Wii U (also hoping for a decline in Wii game prices so I can buy some more), but I know I'm not going to buy it the day it releases.
Blacklight Retribution
Blacklight: Tango Down was one of the games that had the biggest impression on me when I was at E3 2010 last year. It wasn't entirely new and innovative in terms of First-Person Shooters, but I liked the futuristic theme, the customizations, and challenging mission modes. The game didn't take off and had a lot of problems that needed to be fixed, but it wasn't done in time to save it (at least for the PC version) as server went empty very quickly. A while ago, there was reports that a sequel was in the making and that it was going to be free and published by Perfect World. It was demoed at E3 this year, but I didn't really see any mentions by any media other than MMOsite.com
Source: Youtube Channel MovieManiacsDE
Blacklight: Tango Down had a lot of problems that needed to be fixed such as incredibly long match making and intermission times, in-game lag, players die faster than those of Call of Duty Modern Warfare which is already pretty fast, map designs that favored spawn campers, and many more. But despite all that, I enjoyed playing Blacklight: Tango Down. Multiplayer is empty now (literally), but I still jump into the game once in a while to play Black Ops (mission mode). And from the video, it looks like Blacklight improved tremendously in Retribution. I am very excited to see more on the game and am anticipating for its official release.
Professor Layton and the Last Specter, Dragon Quest Monster - Joker 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, DMC (Devil May Cry), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Soul Calibur V, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sonic Generations, Elder Scroll V: Skyrim
All these follow ups and sequels reminded me that I need to finish up their predecessors if I want to be ready for their releases. Out of this collection, I would say that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the one I would want to buy first since I'm so behind everything else.
Dragon's Dogma
This is one of the new titles that isn't a follow up that struck me as impressive. The aspects I liked most from the trailers were the large bosses, open-world gameplay, and European medieval setting.
Source: Youtube Channel BNGamesReviews
It won't be out till next year, so my excitement was extinguished as there so many other games to look forward to that are coming out soon.
Battlefield 3 & Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
These two are an obvious center of attention to many First-Person Shooter fans. Both are looking pretty interesting so far, but I would like to see more. I'm still not very sure how I feel about MW3 because of all the tension between ex-Infinity Ward employees and Activision, but I'm still hoping that the game turns out to be really good. The story and gameplay drove quite a bit of influence into the industry and it would be a shame to end the trilogy on a bad note. Battlefield 3 has convinced me with its trailers of the campaign that it's going to be a much deeper experience for single-player than any other Battlefield has done before. I'm not sure what multiplayer is going to be like, but I hope they don't cut out too much on the PS3 since I plan to get that version due to my laptop's inability to support such a demanding game. I mean, look at these graphics:
Source: Youtube Channel TheLPVideogames
I may have missed some other great games to mention, but they'll get their glory when it's time for them to release.
Dark Souls
I was already excited to hear about a sequel to Demon's Souls, but to watch some of the gameplay and hear about some of the changes between its predecessors and its current state was a total treat:
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
Dark Souls is sure to deliver a compelling experience as Demon's Souls did with challenging gameplay, monstrous bosses, and epic multiplayer quests and PVP. This is one game I'm definitely going to buy.
Nintendo Wii U
So it's not a big surprise that Nintendo came out with a new system as speculations have raised such rumors since the end of last year. Even with confirmed reports of Nintendo having a touch screen on their new controller, the system was a really big buzz and had an impression on me as well as many others. I guess I'm excited about it since I'm hoping for more developers working on Nintendo systems once again for 3DS as well as the Wii U (also hoping for a decline in Wii game prices so I can buy some more), but I know I'm not going to buy it the day it releases.
Blacklight Retribution
Blacklight: Tango Down was one of the games that had the biggest impression on me when I was at E3 2010 last year. It wasn't entirely new and innovative in terms of First-Person Shooters, but I liked the futuristic theme, the customizations, and challenging mission modes. The game didn't take off and had a lot of problems that needed to be fixed, but it wasn't done in time to save it (at least for the PC version) as server went empty very quickly. A while ago, there was reports that a sequel was in the making and that it was going to be free and published by Perfect World. It was demoed at E3 this year, but I didn't really see any mentions by any media other than MMOsite.com
Source: Youtube Channel MovieManiacsDE
Blacklight: Tango Down had a lot of problems that needed to be fixed such as incredibly long match making and intermission times, in-game lag, players die faster than those of Call of Duty Modern Warfare which is already pretty fast, map designs that favored spawn campers, and many more. But despite all that, I enjoyed playing Blacklight: Tango Down. Multiplayer is empty now (literally), but I still jump into the game once in a while to play Black Ops (mission mode). And from the video, it looks like Blacklight improved tremendously in Retribution. I am very excited to see more on the game and am anticipating for its official release.
Professor Layton and the Last Specter, Dragon Quest Monster - Joker 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, DMC (Devil May Cry), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Soul Calibur V, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sonic Generations, Elder Scroll V: Skyrim
All these follow ups and sequels reminded me that I need to finish up their predecessors if I want to be ready for their releases. Out of this collection, I would say that Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the one I would want to buy first since I'm so behind everything else.
Dragon's Dogma
This is one of the new titles that isn't a follow up that struck me as impressive. The aspects I liked most from the trailers were the large bosses, open-world gameplay, and European medieval setting.
Source: Youtube Channel BNGamesReviews
It won't be out till next year, so my excitement was extinguished as there so many other games to look forward to that are coming out soon.
Battlefield 3 & Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
These two are an obvious center of attention to many First-Person Shooter fans. Both are looking pretty interesting so far, but I would like to see more. I'm still not very sure how I feel about MW3 because of all the tension between ex-Infinity Ward employees and Activision, but I'm still hoping that the game turns out to be really good. The story and gameplay drove quite a bit of influence into the industry and it would be a shame to end the trilogy on a bad note. Battlefield 3 has convinced me with its trailers of the campaign that it's going to be a much deeper experience for single-player than any other Battlefield has done before. I'm not sure what multiplayer is going to be like, but I hope they don't cut out too much on the PS3 since I plan to get that version due to my laptop's inability to support such a demanding game. I mean, look at these graphics:
Source: Youtube Channel TheLPVideogames
I may have missed some other great games to mention, but they'll get their glory when it's time for them to release.
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