The hotly anticipated Marvel vs. Capcom 3 reveals the latest additions to its ever expanding roster. Storm, who looks good in her new duds, returns with a similar move set to her MvC2 incarnation, now jacked up and looking fly. While I'm not the biggest fan of C. Viper, her inclusion pretty much solidifies her appearance in Street Fighter games to come. Love or hate, her rush and attack move set should translate well in the Versus world.
This round of reveals seems to have answered the guy at New York Comic Con who complained that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was shaping up to be a sausage fest. With a rumored 8 unrevealed characters remaining, Capcom will keep gamers teased and interested right up to release date.
EA has blessed us with a new trailer for the slick and incredibly disturbed looking Dead Space 2. Between trailers and gameplay videos, Dead Space 2 is giving gamers plenty to get excited about, but it is inevitable that there will be doubters. For those of us who aren't yet properly hyped for the January 25th release, EA is offering an early Christmas gift and not change your mind.
You can download the Dead Space 2 demo for your Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 on December 21. I have a feeling there will be tons engineers and necromorphs being dismembered very soon.
The ultra-tanned, hostess magnet Toshihiro Nagoshi, best known as the creator of Sega's prolific Yakuza series, has thrown his skin flakes into the futuristic shooter ring. With an emphasis on squad-based tactics, Binary Domain is set in a torn-down Tokyo circa the year 2080, where it's humans versus the machines, baby.
The trailer, which is quite lengthy, foregos gameplay for the trusty old cinematic sequences, chock full of the same old played out odds and ends. Robots that look like T-800s, a torn down Tokyo, and a very bland group of characters, including a Ben Affleck look-a-like and the token black man.
"When you hear sci-fi you may think of cold, clinical environments," Nagoshi-san states. "With Binary Domain I wanted to combine this with a deep human drama. The keyword we have in mind for this project is 'Life'. I wanted to make something that will be accepted by both the Japanese and Western markets, and this fundamental theme is something everyone knows but which the full extent of can be difficult to grasp."
You gotta give it to the man, he talks a good one. Human drama is not something that's even remotely tied to shooters, but fans of Yakuza will tell you, despite its action, the well done drama element is the game's main draw. As for appealing to the both Japanese and Western gamers, well.. The hoorah-heavy, testosterone-laced man's men we're looking at aren't typically well received by Japanese gamers. You make one look like Ben Affleck, and the other a racial stereotype, and Japanese acceptance will be sure to plummet even further, no doubt. We'll see.
I admire what Nagoshi-san has done with the Yakuza series, so I'm half expecting Binary Domain to blossom into something special. If the last chunk of the trailer is any indication, we'll at least be in store for something interesting.
While the Yakuza: Of The End hype machine is in full swing for it's 2011 release date, Western gamers can look forward to a different chapter in the Yakuza series early next year. Yakuza 4 will finally have run its way through the localization steps, and according to Sega, will not have as much content cut out as Yakuza 3. It's been a long time to wait since Yakuza 4's early 2010 release in Japan, but hopefully it will be worth it.
And what better way to get excited about 4's delayed release than with an old white man giving you the skinny on the nightlife, hostesses, and all around gangsta of being a yakuza.
"These guys are so tough, they don't even use umbrellas. And that's saying something."
Urgh.
Sega of America must have missed the memo that people play the Yakuza series because they enjoy the immersion into the Japanese culture and lifestyle. Why would they use an old, English speaking man as opposed to a Japanese narrator, I don't know. Maybe they're trying to expand the audience past the niche of gamers with a strong interest in Japan. This voice-over makes the game sound more like a spaghetti western than a Japanese crime drama.
Fortunately, we all know Yakuza 4 will be heavy on the Japanese tip, as with previous entries, only giving you the option of subtitles and forgoing English dubs. Saving money or preserving the experience? I'd like to think the latter, but you never know.
Castlevania is one of the most prolific titles of our generation. Yet depending on who you ask, the series has staled of late. No matter who you ask, it's a universal truth that the Belmont clan's quest to slay Dracula and his minions has never successfully made the jump from pixels to polygons. Fans of the series were hoping that Konami could, with Hideo Kojima's stamp of approval, turn their floundering franchise into something grand, worthy of the Vampire Killer's history. Does Castlevania: Lords of Shadow live up to the legacy, or is it a miserable little pile of secrets?
Rockstar Games has today announced that the oft-forgotten L.A. Noire will reveal a new trailer this Thursday.
For those of us who are not completely familiar with the embattled detective story, here's a bit of a recap. Set in "a perfectly recreated Los Angeles" circa the late 1940's, L.A. Noire, clearly, is in the stylistic composition of 40s and 50s film noire; black and white, low-key lighting, offset camera angles, and dark storylines. Well maybe not black and white, who would want to play a game devoid of color? Rockstar isn't gutsy enough to take that gamble. Nevertheless, gumshoes, sex, drugs, corruption, and a touch of jazz music will surely be a good chunk of Noire's subject matter, how it will all intertwine is yet to be seen.
The game has some promise, if done right. And it wouldn't be a Rockstar release if it didn't come with buckets of hype, but the thing is, this game has been hyped for more 8 years. Yes, L.A. Noire has been in development since sometime around 2002. That's an awful long time to develop a game, true-to-life Los Angeles or not, isn't it? After multiple delays, the title is finally on track for a mid-2011 release. We know what happens when your game gets delayed too many times. Sure, delays are for the best, iron out everything that could be wrong, put out a refined product, all that jazz, but damn. We've seen a lot of platforms and a lot of technologies come and go in a span of 8 years. As a once PlayStation exclusive, you can't have us believe Noire's been in development for the PS3 since 2002. If your game has to be adjusted for more powerful hardware mid-development, you're playing with fire in a bad, bad way.
For those of us popping the Noire Viagra, Rockstar's announcement couldn't be better news. Though in honesty, I wonder how many people wiped the detective story's existence from their memory. As an ever-vigilant Rockstar contrarian, Thursday's trailer better be something really fantastic if L.A. Noire plans on capturing my affection. 1940s GTA ain't gonna cut it here, for that, I could just be playing Mafia II. If you want us to drink the Kool-Aid this time, you need to come correct, R*.
Make sure you check in Thursday morning for the full L.A. Noire trailer in glorious high definition. In the meantime, here is the very first look at Noire, released way back in 2007. Old trailer is old.
The following is an account of my time spent with PlayStation's very own Halo-killer, Killzone 3. Does Guerrilla Games' latest impress, or does its orange-tinted Helghast goggles obscure its vision of greatness?
They say the music game is dying. That it's a stale genre with no innovation, that it's all been done and there are no further mountains to climb. Indie artists are more than willing to implement their work into music games, but most of the popular and iconic musicians are still wary. Songs and albums are too expensive, especially since you can only listen to them in game, as you play them. With the odds against them, Harmonix releases the third entry in the genre-leading Rock Band series, in an attempt to save the plastic instruments.
Technically maybe a little more than week, but regardless! Here is an awesome trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops set to the sounds of The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter. I'll need shelter alright, to play Black Ops uninterrupted in 8 hour sessions at a time. That's what I'm talking about!
If the sights and the sound of the following trailer aren't enough to ruffle your feathers, check your pulse. If you are indeed alive, then maybe you just need something a bit more extreme to stimulate your senses. How about this: Black Ops' zombie mode will allow the players to control John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, and Robert McNamara. This foursome may even one up Left 4 Dead 3's rumored Midnight Riders. Also, dibs on Castro.
Head over to Kotaku for a Dead Ops spoileriffic intro and some gameplay.
You know about Retro City Rampage, right? If you don't then you should promptly kick yourself in the ass, but not until you get yourself up to speed.
The old-school homage-fest has released a 10 minute music sampler, chock full of fun, hilarious, and oddly familiar scenes from the game itself. The soundtrack is composed by chiptune pros virt, Norrin Radd, and Freaky DNA. With the rise of the indy game, and the chiptunes reclaiming some of their former glory of late, let this sampler be music to your ears.
And because you might not have to time or patience to sit through one video for more than 30 seconds, you can download the mixtape, as well as the theme song, right here. That way you can listen to it on your own accord. Everyone wins!
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 7:55PM 
