Mortal Kombat's Kenshi Doesn't Need to See Your Ass to Kick it

Eyes. Who needs em? Mortal Kombat cares very little for eyes, as evidenced by attacks such as Reptile's and Baraka's X-Rays. But what good will those attacks do to a character to has no optics in the first place? Yup, here comes Kenshi. 

A blind monk who whips around a bitching sword with telekinetic ease, Kenshi is on deck as your next kombatant. Netherrealm promised a full slate of four fighters this summer, and after last weeks release of Skarlet - who is bloody fantastic - Kenshi hits the tournament next Tuesday, July 5. Two weeks between the first two downloadable characters, and I hope this pace keeps up. I'd love to bring the fatalities with Rain and the yet unannounced mystery character by time early August comes around. I hope Capcom is taking note with their handling of Marvel vs. Capcom 3's characters.

Will Kenshi justify the $5 buy in? Decide for yourself after laying your precious little eyes on this trailer. 

Captain America Doesn't Play Nice with Hydra Troops

That's what I gather from this prologue trailer for Captain America: Super Soldier. And while the trailer is entirely CG movie, I can attest firsthand that the gameplay feels almost exactly like what Cap is pulling off in these cinematics.

I'm kind of surprised at the lack of buzz that Captain America: Super Soldier has generated so far. I can only imagine this is due to the quality of Sega published movie tie-in games of the past. Thor: God of Thunder says hello. But let us not judge Super Soldier on the failures of the past because it looks pretty damned good. Sure the action is almost a straight jack of Batman: Arkham Asylum, but you can't really complain about that. The freeflow combat thing is a joy to be in control of, whether you're Cap, Batman, or Ezio Auditore da Firenze.  

Captain America: Super Soldier drops in under a month, on July 19. That's right around the corner, so come on people. Let's get excited and make some noise for a movie tie-in that may not be complete trash!

Flip Him the Bird: Shadows of the Damned Boss Gameplay

Watch Shadows of the Damned protagonist Garcia Fucking Hotspur (his words, not mine) challenge a massive demon bird in this boss battle gameplay clip. 

I come away from this chunk of action really loving the music, but this is the work of Akira Yamaoka, so of course the beats are fresh. That may be about it, as the rest of the battle is a yawn-inducing strafing and shooting affair. I was hot for Shadows of the Damned early in it's marketing cycle - mostly because of the killer combination of Suda 51, Shinji Mikami, and Yamaoka - but have since cooled on the third person action title. Not to say it doesn't have some good things going for it, because it certainly does. The light/dark gameplay mechanic sounds cool, but I could see it becoming easily tiresome. There's a nice selection of dynamic weapons housed within a shapeshifting skull named Johnson. And there's plenty of ridiculous and dirty humor being tossed around, if that's your thing.

What's the consensus on Shadows of the Damned, readers? If you're thinking it's a buy, it may be worth the preorder to secure a free copy of Yamaoka's superbly scored soundtrack, something that rarely comes up short. You better act soon though, Shadows releases this coming Tuesday, June 21.

Skarlet Joins Mortal Kombat Next Week

Mortal Kombat is steadily solidifying itself as the best fighting game of the year thus far. Why? Post-release support that moves as quickly as Marvel vs. Capcom 3's entire cast of characters combined. Burned!

IGN has confirmed the much-teased female ninja Skarlet will officially join the tournament's kombatants next week, June 21. The perpetual menstrual cycle uses the blood of fallen warriors and some wicked-sharp kunai to put her enemies to shame. Sorry, was that period joke in bad taste? Well it fits perfectly, so I don't care what you think! 

Skarlet will run you a $5 buy in, as will be the case with each following DLC. You bet your ass, more downloadable characters! Following the blood-ninja-with-boobs will be Kenshi, the blind swordsman. And after Kenshi comes Rain, ninja-prince of his realm, who dons the color purple. The correlation never occurred to me until about 5 minutes ago. Oh Ed Boon, your sense of humor never fails me! One last fighter for the summer has yet to be revealed. Any bets on the identity of this mysterious kombatant? I'm drawing a total blank, though Mortal Kombat lore is not my strongest suit. 

Now you may be asking, how will online play work with these characters? Simple: each paid DLC will release alongside a free DLC which will not only patch the game - allowing you to play online against anyone who has purchased a character - but will also include a free set of character skins. The free patch releasing alongside Skarlet's update will bring Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 skins for Cyrax and Sektor. No word on who gets the new skin treatment with Kenshi and Rain, but as long as those packs keep being free, I'll be a happy gamer. 

PS. Try not to take offense to the period quip, wimp.

Bungie Goes Mobile with iOS App

For some time now, Bungie has been at the forefront of implementing social features into their games. The developer's Halo series may have been the first to successfully implement extras such as replay, image and video sharing, and advanced stat tracking that not only worked, but it looked damn good as well. Bungie has beaten Call of Duty Elite to the punch by sneaking out an iOS app which affords you some of these luxuries on the go. 

Bungie Mobile allows you to ogle a model of your Spartan, view current challenges, and check commendation progress. If you want deeper stats, the app will thoughtfully redirect you to Bungie.net's mobile site, where you can do just about anything you're able to do on the full-fledged portal. Bungie Mobile also allows you to search for other players, so you can creep on their model and stats. To keep you up to date with the latest Bungie news, there's also a section of the app dedicated to Bungie's tweets and recent news. Finally, linking your Bungie.net account to Bungie Mobile will net you a few sweet freebies, such as the 'All-Star Nameplate' to proudly display in-game, and the Blue Flames helmet effect. You jealous? 

All in all Bungie has done well with this mobile application, which for now only works for Halo: Reach. You bet your Spartan ass that Bungie's next game will use Bungie Mobile to the nth degree. Just hope that their first game published by Activision won't have the soul-sold Kotick seal of Devilry emlazoned into it's fibers.

Asura's Wrath is on Full Display, Even Without Arms

Until recently, Asura's Wrath has been nothing but a very long chain of ridiculous action sequences. The game I've lovingly nicknamed God Hand of War - for obvious reasons - is shaping up to be all I've ever wanted in an action brawler. The E3 trailer gives us a look at some of Asura's story, a complete departure from the frenetic scenes such as GALACTIC BUDDHA FINGER. 

After watching an armless Asura be humbled by a God twice as cool-tempered as the fiery one, watch the clip below, which is more of what I expect from this title. With a surprising lack of quick-time events, no less! The initial thinking was that the gameplay of Asura's Wrath would be heavily comprised of QTEs, but whispers from E3 are starting to debunk that theory. Success! Deep, meaty gameplay with lovely stylized action is always welcome. If the story has enough to be the glue that holds together the amount of insanity concentrated in Asura's Wrath, then this game will be a success. And if not, I will take a melee-centric Vanquish any day of the week. Or maybe a better parallel would be a Dragron Ball Z action title? Either way, do want!

DmC is.. Hey, Dante has White Hair!

Well there you go, Devil May Cry purists. Ninja Theory must have heard all the complaining that was done about Dante's new look. Actually, I think the whole world heard it, it was as if millions of geeks suddenly cried out in terror. I hope your complaints are suddenly silenced. 

As things look here, DmC manages to hold onto a lot of what the series is about, if a little shaky. I'm not a fan of all the drastic camera movements during the action sequences, but hopefully that's only to make things look a little more dramatic in this trailer. I could see that wearing me very thin if I had to deal with it during every swordplay segment. 

But back to the important matters; the color of Dante's hair. It looks like his punk-styled locks go all albino when he enters some sort of Devil Trigger mode. Not only that, but his jacket also switches from the burgundy color that caused an outrage, to the crimson color that everyone seems to love! Since that has been straightened out, what should we complain about next? 

Fable: The Journey; The Kinect Leftovers of Fable III?

Not too long ago, I used to love me some Fable. Regardless of how much of a jackass Peter Molyneux is, Fable and Fable II were solid games, even if they never delivered on everything Petey Hype promised. Then came along Fable III to ruin everything the first two games built. 

So here's the Kinect entry in the series, Fable: The Journey. Hey Petey Hype, wasn't Fable III supposed to have Kinect support? Is this the component that was cut out? The bad part of The Journey is that it appears to be an on-rails shooter, where your hands are the gun and magic are your bullets. I won't lie, it looks kind of cool to actually be able to use your hands to cast a plethora of spells, but I'm keeping my expectations tempered. And by tempered, I mean I'm expecting Fable: The Journey to be just better than terrible.

Though on the positive side of things, without the controller there will be no way to hold A to become king and win the game. Cup half full, people.

Insanely Awesome Twisted Shadow Planet Anticipation

It's been in development for a while - since 2007 to be exact - but Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is finally coming together and pushing toward a release during this year's Xbox LIVE Summer of Arcade promotion. Finally!

I'm just going to go ahead and say I absolutely cannot wait for ITSP. It's like ICP, except not totally lame. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet has most things I want in a game; insanity, twisting, shadows.. Stuff like that. It's got the highly detailed minimalist art style of a Limbo or Outland, Metroidvania style exploration, the tricky physics of flying an alien spacecraft, what looks to be pretty hellacious difficulty, and music by Norwegian metal band Dimmu Borgir. I have never listened to them, but my girlfriend hates them. Sounds like a ringing endorsement! 

Zoom is Nyko's Brilliant Answer to Kinect Space Issues

It's been a well publicized complaint that Kinect requires a huge chunk of room real estate to operate at its best. Unfortunately, we don't all live in mansions, leaving many of us with our backs pressed uncomfortably against walls to fully fit into the Kinect's field of vision, which is a recommended 8 to 9 feet away from the device. It was a huge pain in the ass for us with smaller living spaces, and pretty much made the Xbox motion device an impossibility to use in the limiting confines of Japanese households. As an answer to Kinect's greedy requirements, Nyko has created the simplest yet most ingenius peripheral; a pair of clip on glasses. 

Zoom is a set of lenses that clip on over the Kinect's sensors and effectively reduce the required area by 40 percent. 9 feet becomes approximately 4 feet, which is a prayer answered for those who wanted in on the body-flailing fun, but don't have the suggested space, and are unwilling to move around furniture like Microsoft suggests. Feng shui is more important than motion gaming, isn't it? 

Zoom for Kinect requires no installation, no batteries, no power cord, or anything else. It just clips onto your sensor and is ready to rock. Kudos to Nyko for making something so simple yet so useful. Of course, there's no guarantee that the thing will actually work, or if we'll have to pay $50 for piece of plastic, but the idea is promising. We'll give you more news as we get it.