Am I the only one who can't wait to kick a septuagenarian Mitsurugi's ass? I love beating on elderly combatants in fighting games. What is your old ass doing in a fighting tournament? Go sit in a park somewhere! Just kidding, I love old people. Except when they come at me with a sharpened katana, which happens much too often.
Listen to me, I'm talking crazy. God, I can't wait for SoulCalibur V, which will hopefully restore a shred of my sanity.
So apparently, the Warhammer world is this hugely popular fictional universe that spans decades and is the source of inspiration for many of today's popular ideas in gaming. If you're like me, and don't have the patience for lore, literature, and tabletop games, you probably could care less for this world. All that is about to change very soon, with the introduction of Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team,two-player twin stick shooter.
Kill Team will compliment Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, which I'm not as excited for in comparison. It's due out this July for PSN and XBLA, and priced at $10 (800 MSP). Love me some twin-stick action. Pause.
Despite how it may sound, PlayStation Vita is not Sony's foray into the multivitamin market. Are you as disappoint as I? My current multivitamin always makes me feel nauseas, I was looking forward to a powerful and perhaps poorly designed supplement to give my body what it needs. Instead, we get an incredibly powerful handheld device with heavy developer support and a bevy of very cool control options, priced fairly to boot. Bah!
Info on PlayStation's newest portable beast has been readily available for some time, but seeing it all come together during last night's PlayStation press conference was a heart warming moment. Okay, maybe not, but it was pretty neat. Aside from the games looking absolutely magnificent graphically, the press conference did very well to flaunt the new device's myriad of controls. Dual analogs, directional pad, SixAxis, touch screen, and back facing touch pad. Overkill? Maybe a little, as so many control options seem a little repetitive, but they're implemented so damn well!
For instance, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, which may look better than big brother PS3's Uncharted 2, but I digress. You can use the typical control of analog, directional, and face buttons to handle shootouts and platforming. Perfectly LAST GEN! Get with the new school, bitches. When platforming, touch the screen where you want to jump, or slide your finger across a path of surfaces and have a drink of water as Drake handles business and platforms for you. It's a new world of gaming!
Platforming-shatforming, how can you use these controls in new and innovative ways? Mod Nation Racers Vita illustrates this perfectly. Drag your finger across the touch screen to draw your own track, tap the screen to dig depressions for lakes, tap on the back-facing touch pad to sprout mountain ranges, and use SixAxis to create track tilts and such. These are just some of the clever ideas developers can implement when getting busy with PlayStation Vita.
More impressive than controls though, is the ability to go back and forth between the PlayStation Vita and your PlayStation 3. Ruinappears to be a 3/4 dungeon crawling lootfest in the vein of Diablo, which is what it is. It looks cool, but honestly, I'd rather play Diablo. What makes Ruin stand out is the fact that you can switch between PS3 and PSV seamlessly, and pick up where you left off. So if you're locked in an intense session of Ruin before a roadtrip to Grandma's house, grab your PSV and continue where you stopped on your PS3. Play to your heart's content, and when you get back home, load up your PS3 with every-damn-thing you accomplished on your handheld reflected on your home console. While Diablo is busy staying a while to listen, Ruin and PSV will be kicking ass on the go.
The handheld will be priced at a very reasonable $249 if you don't need 3G service. And if you absolutely must have 3G, you'll pay $299 and suffer through the terrible service of AT&T, PlayStation Vita's official 3G partner, an announcement which was met by a hearty chorus of groans from the E3 crowd. Smart people, them.
With an impressive list of developers already on board, PS Vita is trying to prove handheld gaming is still worth a lick, even if your name isn't iOS or Android. To be honest, I don't know if I can be bothered with adding yet another device to my ever-growing man-purse o' technology, but it's hard to argue with Vita's potential. It is, however, easy to argue that supplementastic name.
Well, not really outer space, but close. Microsoft has chosen to take Xbox where many companies have been going as of late; to the cloud! During Microsoft's E3 2011 press conference, it was announced that Xbox LIVE will begin implementing cloud features such as game saves and profile recovery. This means traveling with your Xbox LIVE profile will be easy-peezy, and much less of a hassle than either dealing with the dreadful 'Gamertag Recovery' or saving your profile along with all of your game data onto a dedicated USB stick.
I'm loving this direction, as I have two Xbox consoles in my house I play on, and carting profiles/saves back and forth is a huge pain in the red ring. Also, friends will now have easier access to their accounts without junking up my consoles USB ports with portable media. Everybody wins!
In addition to the knockout cloud announcement, Microsoft was getting busy in other ways. Like introducing another dashboard update?! That's right kids. It seems like Xbox LIVE gets a visual makeover every year, so why not another this fall? Long gone are the days of the blade, replaced now with a nice and simple interface reminiscent of the Windows Phone OS or the newly announced Windows 8 look. Microsoft seems to be following the footsteps of Apple by creating one unified look across all of its platforms, which ain't a bad thing, especially considering that this new look is actually quite snazzy.
Also announced are Xbox Live Beacons. It's an odd sounding feature that lets your network know what game you want to play. Then, you'll receive an instant notification when one of your friends has fired that game up. Sounds kind of silly, but sure, whatever. Must be useful if your friend list is at max capacity. Then again, if you're maxed out on XBL friends, you're probably exclusively playing one of either Halo, Gears of War, or Call of Duty. Beacons don't sound as awesome as bacon, but really, what does?
Expect more, such as YouTube and Bing search (through Kinect voice commands), increased Kinect support, and many more additions that have either flown under the radar, or I don't feel like writing about. Don't judge me, I'm pressed for time dammit. The latest Dashboard update will go live later this year, giving you plenty of time to save up for a Kinect.
Since the release of L.A. Noire two weeks ago, people have been constantly asking me what I think of the game, and where my review is. L.A. Noire is a vast universe of exploration and interrogation that I needed to play in full before even attempting to put my thoughts together on paper. With all there is to see and do, you can easily lose yourself for 40 hours. So the review is a little behind schedule, but to make up for it, our friends at Rockstar have given us some free stuff to give away. Read on to find out if L.A. Noire is worthy of your time, and to win free shit!
It's no secret that Brink had a rough go of it early on. It was panned by many a critic and review, for it's lack of polish and horrendous online performance out of the gate, and rightly so. In our review, I said there was still a chance for Brink to right its ills through DLC and patches, will this first content pack be step in the right direction?
As a thank you for dealing with the lag, Splash Damage announced Brink's first DLC would be a freebie for everyone, naturally leading us to believe that the offering would be a steaming pile of MG nest wreckage. Imagine my surprise then to learn that this DLC will not only be free, but a hulking batch of awesome as well. Here's what you get:
Maps: Founder's Tower, Labs
Outfits: The Sad Punk, The Limey
Abilities: UAV for Operatives, Napalm Grenade for Soldiers, Pyro Mine for Engineers, Field Regen Unit for Medics, Tactical Scanner for any class
Weapon Attachments: Bayonets, Weapon Shields
Level Cap: Players will now max out at Level 24
How's that for a deal? There is no denying that Brink is truly making an attempt to win our hearts with this DLC, so why deny the love? Look for the extra content to hit sometime in June.
If I had no idea what the series entailed, I'd think Gears of War 3 is the video game incarnation of Jack Osbourne's biography; a story of tracking down his long lost father, Ozzy, and shooting at huge monsters, who may or may not be his sister, Kelly.
In all seriousness though, as much as people would believe that Gears of War 3 is online multiplayer only (a la Call of Duty) there is a story you know. You can piece some of it together during this trailer, and for what you're not able to make out, there's, well, actually buying the game. A novel idea!
Aggregator sites like Reddit and digg have long been popular with just about any savvy internet patron; no matter your odd obsession or relentless need to consume as much media as possible, you will find a home on these aggregators. The problem is, while customization exists, it becomes far too much of a chore to find content tailored for you amongst the thousands of unique entries submitted daily in a category as prolific as gaming. Enter the new-and-improved Raptr.
For many of us, Raptr is no secret. As a well established social community for gamers across platforms, Raptr features a base that's stronger than 6 million gamers worldwide, and growing. Raptr allows you communicate with friends across Xbox LIVE, PSN and Steam through your instant messaging client of choice, tracks your achievements and trophies, as well as compiling stats and more. This week, Raptr has rolled out an upgrade to it's social experience to rival the likes of other big aggregators sites, as well as purely social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, strictly for gaming.
Tell Raptr what game you're currently playing and it will create a feed of relevant information pertaining to your game of choice. Easier yet, tell Raptr what your name is on XBL/PSN/Steam, and it will create a stream of personalized information tailored exactly to what you play and what you enjoy. Algorithmic magic - compiled along with your recent, auto-imported gaming history - assures you stay up to date with old classics and current favorites alike, with unique, user-submitted information based for each member. Have a cool link about L.A. Noire you want to share? Throw it at Raptr and it will share your story with millions of other would-be detectives across the broad user base. Bored, without a new game that's particularly caught your eye? Raptr will even suggest games you may be interested based on some of your past history. There could be something here for everyone, and that's only the bare basics of this gaming network.
As much as I wish Raptr were paying me for this plug, they're not, but I'm cool with that. I like my aggregator sites, but they're a damn mess, especially when it comes to gaming. Not only does Raptr simplify that process, but it keeps you in touch with friends, allows you to get involved in conversations and with your own submissions, and keeps track of your progress. OBG has it's own little home over there, why don't you follow us?
Finally, swag. You thought I forgot? To celebrate Raptr's shiny new interface launch, the site is giving away tons of goodies during the "Summer of Raptr" sweetstakes. What do you win? Raptr-branded apparel, games, Microsoft Point cards, and additional accessories and peripherals from GUNNAR, Logitech, Astro Gaming, and more. How do you win? Keep reading OBG and try out Raptr. When the time for free shit comes, you will know.
Why not give Raptr a shot? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Do you like war and modernism? A fan of explosions and crumbling buildings? Here is an entire days worth of those vitamins in a neat 90 second package. In Modern Warfare 3, Makarov is bringing the destruction to our shores, an injustice that surely no soldier will stand for.
How do you guys feel about Modern Warfare 3? Are three developers two too many? Do the yearly Call of Duty releases feel too much like sports games, with marginal improvements and an updated roster of guns? Do you desire more explosions? Very well then.
Brinkis a game that I've been waiting to spend some extended time with. I'm talking about having the itch; sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth, mumbling incoherently, and scratching my neck. Something about a fast-paced arcade shooter that puts heavy emphasis on parkour does it for me. The game impressed in short preview sessions, and was heavily marketed to give itself a nice pre-release buzz, though it seems as if some quality assurance blues put a damper on Brink's attempt at revolutionizing the genre.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 2:42PM 
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