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!
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.
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.
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.
2D side-scroller beat 'em up fans, where you at? Right here, dawg. Doesn't take much for me to be enamored with 2D action, usually swords, guns, and/or magic is enough to get me riled up in that realm. What happens if you add in some delicious art of thick-thighed amazon warriors and testosterone oozing man's men? Vanillaware's Dragon's Crown.
The Odin Sphere and Muramasa developer has taken their signature art style into the world of Dungeons and Dragons (without quite treading on AD&D) to create a lovely beat 'em up overflowing with swords, shields, arrows, magic, pectorals, thighs, and cleavage. The art is may be just a tad over the top, but it looks so damn good in motion! How has it taken these guys so long to put out an HD title? Dragon's Crown will be their first.
The question is, will the gameplay of Dragon's Crown be on par with the art? Why the hell not? There looks to be a rudimentary combo system in place, with the impact of each meaty blow holding a good amount of weight. Rightfully so, look at those huge.. Weapons! Four-player cooperative online beat 'em ups don't often disappoint. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is no different. Dragon's Crown will be available for PS3 and PlayStation Vita in Spring of 2012. Such a long time to wait for something so beautiful. What a tease.
Nintendo stepped out at E3 2011 and revealed their “next-gen” console, which is really a controller-centric device called the Wii U. From its early looks, the Wii U puts the focus on an oversized tablet controller, which features a massive 6.2-inch touchscreen. The overall bulk of the controller means that it’s going to be a bit of an unwieldy device, with a bit of a 'learning curve' for your hands. The controller incorporates many elements of a Wiimote, such as motion control. The Wii U tablet can be used together with Wiimotes and other accessories like the Wii Balance Board, to create some interesting combinations for gameplay. The controller is backwards compatible with all Wii games, however Wii U is no longer compatible with the Gamecube games.
The actual console looks like a beefed up lovechild of the Wii and Xbox 360, without the Gamecube controller ports. Nintendo did tout a lot of third party support with a compelling sizzle reel of upcoming games. What Reggie failed to mention - until after Nintendo’s press conference - was the fact that the reel was culled from Xbox 360 and PS3 games in development. Reggie did state that Wii U’s graphical performance will be on par with the other current-gen consoles.
The most intriguing element of the Wii U is that it takes the touchscreen tablet angle to its logical extreme: the device is a wireless window into the game console such that if the TV is otherwise occupied, the game can be played in full on the Wii U controller instead. This means that if someone else wants to use the main screen, you can keep playing your game on the console and access it via your touchscreen tablet. This takes a lot of the onus off being tied to the television set in the middle of the living room, and could open up a lot of different opportunities for social gaming in the same room, or around the house. This will depend heavily on the strength of wireless range that the Wii U is capable of maintaining.
Nintendo has sold over 86 million Wii units across the world, so they’re confident that they have a giant consumer base to work from. The primary concern that hung over the Wii, and what kept several developers flagship titles from gracing Nintendo’s now last-gen console, has been the platform’s overall horsepower. That problem is being resolved with the Wii U, which has the processing power to produce 1080p HD video content, something that anyone more than a social gamer must be thrilled with.
As an avid Nintendo fanboy, I always look forward to what the Big N brings to shows such as E3. The Wii U is no exception. I’m cautiously looking forward to the new console, and would love to see actual games harnessing the Wii U’s full power. Tech demos and footage from other systems can only go so far. A day after the announcement of Wii U, Nintendo’s stock saw a 5% drop to the lowest level it’s been in recent memory. It seems as if both investors and consumers alike may be skeptical of Nintendo’s direction. Currently, Nintendo is keeping tight-lipped with information such as launch date and price point for the Wii U, so there is still have a lot of details to look forward to.
But I want to know what you all think. Will you Wii U?
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!
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?
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.
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!
Friday, June 17, 2011 at 5:58PM 
