Hard Metal Meets Cold Steel in Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Did you ever wonder what a dungeon crawler mixed with a third person shooter and the essence of heavy metal would look like? Me neither. Thankfully, inXile Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks has tackled the unthought notion, and the answer to the question is a resounding "awesome".

Hunted: The Demon's Forge looks to borrow heavily from Gears of War's play mechanic at its face, but it places an emphasis on co-op play. Control the burly Caddoc to slice and dice all sorts of nasties, and have your friend play the svelte E’lara for more of a spell-weaving, arrow-shooting experience. It's like two games in one! But wait, there's more! She casts magic, he follows up with hard slashes, creating a level of dynamic dual techniques between the two. Rad.

Are you a total hermit with no friends and no connection to the interwebz? No problem ya bum, pick your favorite of the two and let the AI control the other, but feel free to switch between the either of the mercenary alliance at any time! Methinks Hunted: The Demon's Forge is on the right track. Confirmation will come on the stateside release date of June 1 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Now, back to headbanging. 

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Makes Death at Mach 1 Look Good

I've always been a sucker for the Ace Combat series. Something about majestic metal birds soaring above the clouds at 1195 kilometers per hour, shredding the bloody hell out of each other with various high tech armaments floats my sails, man.

Though the story is never very riveting, the franchise has dog fighting down to an arcade art form, and that fact is just grossly exaggerated in this Ace Combat: Assault Horizon trailer, which focuses on close range combat. Laying back and locking on is a bore. Why let the missiles do all the work? Wouldn't you rather put your nosecone up a fighter's afterburner and pump the damn thing full of 30mm depleted uranium armor-piercing shells at a cool 3,900 rounds per minute? Of course you would.

Buildings taking damage from errant missiles, damaged aircraft splintering to oblivion as your vulcan viciously rips their fuselage apart, close calls, and the camera work! Whew, I'm feeling faint. No release date yet, but you can expect Namco Bandai's high-flying adrenaline rush sometime in 2011.

via VG247

Anarchy Reigns Rains Teasers

Platinum Games and Sega have formed a formidable little alliance between themselves, releasing quality games like Mad World, Bayonetta, and Vanquish. Their latest, Anarchy Reigns, is more of the same; unique style and furious action. The two are taking this title into unfamiliar, yet almost mandatory territory, multiplayer story. Sorry, I just wanted to rhyme all that. Sounded awesome, didn't it? Say it again. Louder!

We've yet to see any of the multiplayer in action, but what we've seen of the game in motion thus far ooks promising. Announced late last week, Sega has already hit us with a total of 5 teasers; one overview, and four detailing each of the flavorful cast of characters that you'll be putting the beats on suckas with. For your convenience, I present you the character teasers bundled up into one explosive video.

Hope you enjoy chainsaws, jet hammers, katanas, and big ol' butts. 

Ridge Racer Unbounded Burns Out

As a PlayStation launch title, the original Ridge Racer was not only a technical and visual marvel, it was awesome fun. The series has been pretty hit-or-miss since then, with the only truly fond memories I have of the franchise after the first entry being the surprisingly good Ridge Racer Type 4.

Fast forward to today, where it's been announced that Ridge Racer is making a comeback and is apparently pissed off. Why else would Reiko, the adorable face of the series, plow through two cars and one brick wall on the way to destroying a city block?

Ridge Racer Unbounded, targeted for release way off in 2012, seems to be taking the franchise down the aggressive, reckless racing path that seems to be fairly popular these days. I've always been a fan of the Burnout series, so if Ridge Racer Unbounded can capture that type of enjoyable destruction and put a unique twist on it, this might be a title to watch.

Upon Further Inspection, Dark Souls is Demon's Souls

Yesterday's Dark Souls information-blitz was a short lived bit of fun, because now we've got screenshots and a big, beautiful trailer. Who needs information when we have pics and flicks! 

By looking at the aforementioned media, it's quite easy to see that Dark Souls is Demon's Souls, basically. And, call me a masochist, but I could not be any more excited. 

Dark Souls Screenshot Gallery

Demon's Souls Successor Project Dark Becomes Dark Souls

Demon's Souls is an incredibly challenging role playing game which released in late 2009 exclusively on PlayStation 3. While it never became a household name, Demon's Souls has a pretty large and extremely dedicated cult following who still play the game to this day, because it's fun to get the shit kicked out of you and lose all your 'souls'.

Well, not too long ago, a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls was announced. Developers From Software didn't release many details aside from the working title, Project Dark. As of today, we can begin filling in some of the details we never received.

The project is now rightfully named Dark Souls. It will maintain the level of frustratingly delicious difficulty its predecessor had. The premise of the game remains, though the story and the world have no tie in with Demon's Souls. Instead of being broken up into different areas -- which required zoning and a nice, long load time -- the world will be one, big, open playground of the dead.

Character creation is intact, however choosing a job when creating your character doesn't make the jump. No big loss there, the job system didn't seem to make much sense to me anyway. As with most sequels, the selection of weapons, armor, and magic skills will be expanded. I expect all good treasure to be almost impossible to acquire, in classic Demon's Souls fashion.

The online aspect of Demon's Souls will carry over, though in what capacity has yet to be finalized. You will still be able to leave notes to warn future adventurers of forthcoming dangers. However no mention was made of player summoning or PvP world invasion. Also it seems like the world tendency changes have been scrapped.

Dark Souls is slated to release later this year, as a PS3 exclusive in Japan, and for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in the west. 360 owners can thank Namco Bandai for finally being able to get in on the anger-inducing fun.

via Siliconera

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Gives You Voice Options

One of the under-appreciated, but incredibly freaking awesome features of Street Fighter IV was the ability to not only toggle voice tracks from English to Japanese, but to choose which characters you wanted to adjust. Capcom knows what we like, and that's why they're bringing this feature over to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Sort of. 

While you'll be able to choose which of Capcom's brawlers you want to sound like goof balls in English, and which you want to sound much cooler in Japanese, Marvel's fighters don't appear to have that option. Understandable perhaps, but I would find much twisted pleasure in hearing Captain America scream out his Stars & Stripes in perfect Japanese. 

Oh well. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, it's going to be nice to hear at least some Japanese amidst six fighters beating the X out of each other.

Sega and Platinum Games Announce Anarchy Reigns

Last year's news of Platinum Games working on a multiplayer title has finally resurfaced, now with more details! Anarchy Reigns is a brawler at heart, upping the ante of the experience by adding multiplayer support. It's said to offer a diverse range of game types, ranging from tag team battles to a full-on battle royale, where a mess of players beat the life out of each other. 

Jack, protagonist of the awesome Wii exclusive Mad World, makes an appearance with chainsaw and all. He looks a little different in high def color, but it seems like he hasn't lost his penchant for brutality. Other characters appear to have some resemblances, such as the bull-headed fellow who draws some similarities to Mad World's Big Bull Crocker, and the female whose got an ass like Bayonetta. Fuck it, I'll just go ahead and say the Metal Gear Solid: Rising ninja character is Vanquish's Sam Gideon in a new suit. It's a Platinum Games reunion!

Anarchy Reigns is set for a Fall 2011 release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Sentinel and Hsien-Ko are Marvel vs. Capcom 3's "Final" Fighters

Sentinel and Hsien-Ko are Marvel vs. Capcom 3's final two characters. Supposedly. Though between DLC and unlockables, I'm not ready to sign off on any finalizations.

Could Marvel and Capcom could've done better with this last two slots? Possibly, Capcom especially with the news that Frank West and Phoenix Wright were late cuts, I'd much rather have either of them than Hsien-Ko, whose bandwagon I never really hopped on. I'm feeling Sentinel though, especially since it's almost guaranteed that he'll have his mango colors. That's right baybee, the Knicks say fuck you too!

via Eurogamer

Bullet Points: Crysis 2 Multiplayer Beta

All footage I've seen of Crysis 2's multiplayer in action led me to believe this was going to be the hot new title for online head-to-head this year. With Halo wrapped up for the time being, and the shaky ground Call of Duty has stood on recently, the door was opened for a new king of competitive multiplayer.

Two or three hours with the Crysis 2 beta leads me to believe it is truly that; a beta, not reflective of the final product. Hit boxes are off, lag persists, and good luck even connecting to a match. Odds are you'll run into more than a few host/server disconnects. The models look cheaply made, especially in death, where they ragdoll like five planks stuck together with one bent nail. Overall, the game feels unpolished. While the Manhattan rooftops are a great place to showcase a nanosuit's impressive array of skills, it's a bland representation of the fully rendered destroyed New York City locations Crytek has been using as a selling point.

+ Exciting, cinematic action
+ Hi-tech perks and abilities keep the pace high
+ Addictive, rewarding, multiplayer system (though not very original)
-  Unpolished
-  Unstable match connections, lag
-  Hit box areas appear off

I came away feeling like Crysis 2 is Modern Warfare with hi-tech abilities and perks, which isn't really a bad thing. It retains the CoD series' addictive and rewarding incentive based system. They've got some time to clean the damn thing up, and I hope they do, as it would suck to let so much promise go to waste. March 22nd is just around the corner, so Crytek will have to work fast.