We got a chance to chat with Morgan Roberts, a producer at Sega of America, who was kind enough to demo Captain America: Super Solider and give us some insight into its development.
Morgan was playing a pre-alpha build of the game, which is a stage before in depth testing and finalizations. Even in this early point of its development, what we saw had tons of promise. Be forewarned, the video is lengthy, which speaks volumes for the product on the floor, complete or not. The pre-alpha demo had to have been a good 6 to 8 minutes, which is better than a lot of demos on PSN or XBLA marketplace.
Good stuff. Captain America: Super Solider is definitely one to keep your eyes on.
My associate and I have recently been playing a lot of Yakuza 3. Awesome game. Like the rest of the Yakuza series, the story and cinematography is killer, making it feel more like a big budget Japanese blockbuster than a game. Before the game was released, Sega announced that content was being cut from the Western release of Yakuza 3, because it would be a little over the head of us English speakers. Needless to say, people were pissed. We don't like watered down games, if you're gonna give it to us, we want it straight, no chaser.
Well, I guess someone at Sega was listening to all the complaints. Yakuza 4, which has been out in Japan since March, will release stateside this spring with minimal cuts. Kotaku reports the hostess clubs will return, assuring that you will be able to pay for a virtual woman's company to make your in-game gangsta feel like a pimp, which ain't easy. Unfortunately, it looks like the game's quiz show, Answer X Answer, will not be making the cut, since translating the custom animated text would be too much of a chore for the localization team. It sucks, but some progress is better than none, right?
Now, entertain yourself with one of Yakuza 3's most amazing moments.
So which do you want first? Let's just start with the bad news. You're going to die. You're in perfect health and will probably live another 75 years, but you're definitely going to die if you try to see me in Halo: Reach, son! So, now that we've gotten past that, here's the not-as-bad news: DC Universe Online has been delayed until early 2011. That wasn't so bad, was it? Upsetting, maybe, but not as woeful and embarrassing as getting torn to shreds with an assault rifle on Boardwalk.
On the upswing though, the good news is that Sony Online Entertainment has assured us that this delay is helping them to release a much more polished product. Isn't that what all delays are for, SOE? Well, I'm not going to sit here and split hairs about delays, this is a time for coming to terms with the news, DC fanboys.
To make good on it's delay, SOE has released new in-game footage of DC Universe Online; the first being a "fly-through" of Superman's home city of Metropolis. I know what you're saying, it looks really good, but there's not much action. Chill homeboy, that's where the second video comes in. Nothing but a minute and a half of frenzied brawling! It's more confusing than trying to spot Elmo at a Bloods initiation, but the carnage looks fun as hell.
About two weeks until Sega unleashes the craziness known as Vanquish onto the unsuspecting world. Throw ya' gunz in the air if you're excited!
In an effort to train your senses to fully process Vanquish in the millisecond your reflexes will require for you to survive, here are two recent trailers for Platinum Games' latest; one showing you what you're up against, the other flossing the transforming weapons system you control. Now that is some beautiful fragging right there. I'd shed a tear if I weren't too busy disintegrating Russian death machines and smoking a cigarette. Damn, Sam Gideon is a bad ass.
An Amazon pre-order is supposed to net you three exclusive in-game weapons, but I don't see them advertising that deal anymore. I'll have to get to the bottom of this. Stay tuned.
Hypothetical question: You're hanging out in the sewers, when all of a sudden, a radioactive plumber comes flying out of the nearest pipe and right at you! Sluggish to react, the plumber bites you on the arm! What do you now? Stomp really hard on someone's head, then throw his unconscious body into the sewer water, then go back above ground and stomp the shit out of anyone you can find, that's what. And that is exactly why I cannot wait for the 80's Easter egg hunt that is Retro City Rampage.
A lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops stories this week. Achievements have been leaked (warning: minor spoilers). Zombies have been confirmed. Customization has been flaunted.
Treyarch has finally confirmed one of the worst kept secrets ever, the inclusion of zombies in Black Ops. After the success of the zombie mode in Call of Duty:World at War, how could they not? Dead Ops, as it's called, is a four player co-op romp against the undead horde. Preorder the Hardened or Prestige edition, and the four zombie maps from World at War can be yours at no extra cost! No word on whether or not the normal edition cheapskates can get some zombie lovin' yet though. This site has been put up by Treyarch to tease zombie mode. It features creepy music, surveillance video, and people in military clothing shuffling around clumsily. How very zombie-like!
And for the coup de grâce, the multiplayer customization trailer. The level of customizing Treyarch has added is awesome, allowing you to paint your face, choose different camo types for your clothing, and put your clan tag or personal logo on your weapon. And no longer are you able to access all unlocked gear once you reach a certain level, now you have to be the required level on top of purchasing the item with currency earned through fragging and completing challenges. Just like Halo: Reach! Which is just like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2! Which is just like.. Damn, so much idea sharing going on, I'm losing track.
It goes with out saying, Call of Duty: Black Ops is going over the top to keep gamers reeled in. With the dissolution of Infinity Ward (thanks, Kotick) Treyarch has to show the world that they're comfortable being in the drivers seat of the Call of Duty series now. Black Ops is a step in the right direction.
It's no secret here that I love the Castlevania series, but I'm not without my doubts for the latest entry, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. While all the press release videos made me pound my computer desk with overjoyed rage, behind the scenes gameplay videos didn't really stir me the same way. They looked bland and without personality.
The seven-plus minute trailer from Tokyo Game Show rested my concerns regarding the characters and the storyline. What at one point I thought may have been too influenced by western fantasy such as The Lord of The Rings, I was starting to see was truly Castlevania at its core, regardless of whether or not it was borrowing from Tolkien or Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Today, Konami brings us a new trailer, that is more epic in both scope and length than the nearly-short-film that premiered at TGS. Yes, eleven minutes of details, narrative, and most importantly gameplay. One month, two trailers, nearly twenty minutes of footage. That's a lot of Castlevania to tease as pre-release hype. Yet we have no reason to fear, as there is supposedly twenty hours of gameplay in Lords of Shadow, so a measly twenty minutes ain't no type of spoiler for us, nope.
This eleven minute behemoth preps the potential player for what to expect on October 5th, or as I've come to call it All Shadows Day, because I will be sitting at home, shades drawn, candles lit, smoke in the room, playing Lords of Shadow all day. What was once considered skepticism and cautious optimism has grown into full fledged excitement. Watch the trailer, and if you don't feel the same way, then you ain't no friend of mine, friend.
Explodemon!, is a game created by independent developers Curve Studios, based on old school 16-bit platforming, that takes some of it's artistic flair from Megaman X, and adds a physics based puzzle system to the mix. Say what? Say it sounds sweet, because it does.
Curve calls Explodemon! a loving parody of badly translated action games, and a mixture of Yoshi's Island and Half Life 2 if they were fused into one game by quirky Japanese developer Treasure. Uh, I don't know about that exactly, but it's all good. It's a little bit of Megaman X, 'Splosion Man, puzzles, a combo system, slick art style, and lotsa purdy colors. Color me interested.
Growing up, there were some things you could not separate me from. Forging my gangsta by listening to classic hip hop, molding my geek by playing video games, and refining my palette by eating raw dough. Don't front, you know you ate it too. As a hardcore gamer in training, I tried to own, play, and love every system I could, and I did for the most part, but for some strange reason, I was always a Sega fanboy.
Maybe it's because I didn't need a game to entertain myself with the Master System, or because I didn't need blood codes to indulge in some fine gore, or because Sonic was an infinitely cooler mascot than Mario, who knows, but I miss Sega's heyday. Being a throwback to classic Sega vs. Nintendo days is probably why I'm so excited for Sonic 4. That and the fact that solid hedgehog games have been hard to come across since Sonic Adventure (which coincidentally is available to download on XBLA or PSN.)
Sonic 4 hearkens back to the two dimensional speed, spins, jumps, tilts, and power ups of classic Sonic the Hedgehog gaming, while infusing some elements of the newer Sonic titles, all sexy and high definition. It's really good stuff. Don't believe me, see for yourself in the attached trailer for the Casino Street Zone. It's just like the incredibly designed Casino Night Zone of Sonic 2, except, well, street. I can dig that, streets are gangsta.
So Sega, when are we getting Sonic Spinball HD? I'll just keep my fingers crossed for that one.
Bethesda Softworks has outed a lovely TV spot for it's upcoming opus Fallout: New Vegas, and when I say lovely I really mean it. I admittedly slept on Fallout 3, having not playing it until maybe six months or so after it's release, but I'm really glad I got around to it. As one of the best games I've played in recent memory, Fallout 3 was not without it's drawbacks, which New Vegas looks to improve on, and add to tenfold.
The ambiance of New Vegas is a rapid departure from the ruins of Washington D.C. While the awesomeness of seeing our history destroyed and inhabited by super mutants and ghouls blew my mind, traversing from point A to point B got bland fast. If you didn't happen upon a tattered national monument, there wasn't much to be seen in D.C., unless of course you crossed paths with a traveler, or a stray robot, or a super mutant, or some other kick-ass randomness. And even though it was these things that mattered, that kept the game engaging, and that made me want to wander around the wasteland looking for the next random situation my character could become involved in, part of me was still lulled to sleep by the District of Columbia's far-too-typical post apocalyptic snooze-fest of browns and grays.
Enter New Vegas and it's well captured spirit of the old Vegas' panache. Sure, the neighborhood ain't as pretty as she used to be, but the charm is still there. Bright lights, flashing advertisements, exploding buildings, and a vault that looks like a freaking casino! That's a nice touch right there. New Vegas even features beautifully vibrant skies to get your eyes their daily dose of colors. Gone are the two-toned nuclear winters of Washington D.C., replaced with mythological things, like the post-apocalyptic blue sky, and sunset.
Above all else, Fallout New Vegas looks to deliver where it matters: gameplay, story, and the immerse world of throat-cutting and slaver-gutting that Fallout 3 so aptly portrayed. Gambling, shooting, exploring, blowing shit up, and tough moral decisions. Now all I'm left wondering is, will we be able to solicit ghoul prostitutes?
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 9:41PM 
