Batman:Arkham Asylum demo review

"Hitchhikers may be escaping patients."

The Arkham Asylum demo arrived the 7th, and I played through it twice so far. The action starts off really quick as the Joker manages to escape the two guards, with a little help from Harley Quinn. Batman immediately pursues and the beatings begin. Hand-to-hand combat is a little slow, but it does let you enjoy the brutality that the dark knight dishes out. Tapping the Y button when prompted will counter an enemie's attack, which is satifying.

You may also learn the hard way that the direct approach is not the best choice when taking on armed opponents. You have two other options, you can sneak by them by crouching or jumping around on the gargoyles, or you can pick them off one by one and then escape to safey back to you perch on the gargoyles. This can be quite fun, you get to mess with your enemies' heads just the way Batman should.

Along the way you pick up different characters' bios, which adds for a brief but interesting read. It's nice to hear the voices for Batman and the Joker from the animated show from the early 90's as well. My only concern is that the hand-to-hand combat could get a little repetitive, but I guess we'll see how that plays out. As long as it's evenly paced with the other elements of the game, then there shouldn't be too much problem.

Batman:Arkham Asylum swings into action on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 August 25th, while the PC version arrives in mid-September.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles:Turtles in Time Re-shelled

I just came accross this game in the new arrivals section on X-Box live. Now at first I was excited, and thought, could this be? One of my childhood favorite games has come to Xbox arcade. Well, sort of. I started it up and was disapointed to find that it's been modernized with 3D graphics and very unengaging music. Each of the turtles has stats:speed, range, defence, rush attack and special attack. Now it's been a long while since I played the original, but there's was just something about that good ol' 2D-ness that I miss. Also, the new music is weak, it's just not the same without the original sounds. So if you're not like me, and can get passed these issues you would probably enjoy the game as it looks like a litteral level for level copy. Sometimes though, you can't throw fancy 3D and HD and VD at something to make it better.

It'll be done when it's done

Well Blizzard has announced that Starcraft 2 will be delayed until 2010. There's still much work to be done, particularly with the Battle.net servers. I'm sure lots of fans will be upset by this and start committing suicide en-mass, but it's important that they get the online aspect right. After all, the reason why Starcraft is so great is that the multiplayer carried it on throughout the years. I still pick it up a couple times each year and play until I realize how much I suck at competing with real opponents.

This probably means the beta is going to be pushed back as well. Cry yourself to sleep tonight, it's okay.

Halo Legends

Halo has appeared in many forms; books, comics, and video games. Well, now you can add anime to the list. Microsoft’s 343 Industries will be working with some big names in the business, including Shinji Aramaki, director of Appleseed and Mamoru Oshii, director of Ghost in the Shell. Studios such as Toei Animation, Casio, Bones and several others will be involved in this project. So yeah, this is a very impressive line-up we’re talking about. Halo Legends will be comprised of seven short films, and should be seeing a fall release.

In case you hadn't seen it, here's the trailer.

Dead Island Update

Well here's a little bit of good news for zombie survival game fans.

"You know Techland, right? No no, not that weird Discovery Zone ripoff your Dad used to take you to when you were a little kid -- the Polish developer! You know, the comany that makes Call of Juarez and ... ummm ... not much else. Anyway, while speaking recently with G4TV, the company's international brand manager, Blazej Krakowiak, confirmed a second title from the developer, albeit one announced way back in 2007, named Dead Island.

Unfortunately, the game's website tells us little to nothing about the game's current status. So, we emailed Techland this afternoon and Krakowiak told us, "As far as Dead Island goes, nothing has changed regarding our media silence .... the game's worldwide publisher is still waiting for their best moment to strike and reveal the awesome stuff we're preparing for zombie fans and gamers." He also confirmed to us the game's still in-development status, saying, "The game's still alive (or better yet, still Dead) and doing great."

As G4TV rightly points out, when the game was shown last it was without a publisher, so if anything, this means good things for Techland's zombie game. After all, we're still wondering what happened to the company's open-world FPS game, Warhound ..."

Source:Joystiq July 2,2009

Giant fighting robots? YES!

Well word on the street kiddies is that there's a new Mechwarrior game in the works. Now from what I've heard it's going to be a complete revision of the series, so it won't be called Mechwarrior 5.

Check out this trailer for the game:


Looks pretty tight, it seems like it's in game footage too, so not bad. I'm unsure how I feel about the mechs' movements, they seem a little slow. Granted they are giant robots, surrounded by buildings so I guess it's understandable. Still, I would definitely be looking forward to this one, no indication yet as to when it will be released. It will be gracing our PCs and Xbox 360's at some point in time.

For more info, check out this article from Gamespot

What ever happened to Dead Island?

I don’t know if you’ve heard of this game, but it actually looks like it has potential. It appears to be an interesting zombie survival game. Unfortunately there hasn’t been much word on it lately. Is it tight under wraps? Or did it get scrapped? Even its website at http://www.deadislandgame.com/ is closed off, with an under construction notice. So far all my searches have only uncovered old news, nothing to report. A little something to go on would be nice, anything. Even if the game got cancelled I would like some closure.

Missing Zombie Game
REWARD!!!
5 million imaginary fun-bucks!
If found please alert the crazyvideogamer.

More Starcraft 2 footage

Here's a youtube video with some new gameplay footage, this is from Starcraft Legacy's account:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT_0IRNbN14. Check it out! And it's in HD too! *Drools*

Left 4 Dead 2 soon?

Catchy title huh? I know, I’m so proud of myself(if by some chance someone else came up with this, please don’t sue me, I don’t have any money). Well anyway, if you’ve followed E3 coverage you’ll know that Valve announced that they were working on Left 4 Dead 2. It’s already scheduled for a Fall 2010 release. Now you would think that such news would be well received, but apparently not everyone’s happy about that. Why? Well, think about it. With the original Left 4 Dead, we got four maps, and two game play types. That was it. It was nice to see Valve provide some post release support with some updates, in particular removing the ability of the infected in versus mode to push that generator in front of the elevator in mercy hospital. It was an incredibly irritating move, to say the least. Sure, it was funny the first time, but that was it. So a little later, before summer, Valve decided to give us ONE more game mode and ONE more level, albeit only the end of the map it would seem. This all comes to a grand total of five maps and three game play modes. You still couldn’t even play every game type on all the maps either. Was Left 4 Dead fun? Yes! Was it great to kill zombies with friends? Yes! Did it provide hours of entertainment? Yes! Was it worth the price? Absolutely not. Yeah we got a lot out of the game, I can’t lie, but there wasn’t much content. Working on a sequel means that focus on follow up support and material will be divided, at the least. In my humble opinion, there is enough of a Left 4 Dead fan base to be fed extra downloaded material for the next couple years, it feels like there’s a lot of untapped potential to the game. To some people whipping out a new game is a slap in the face to the community. What we were given was great, but it feels like there should have been more. It’s not that I myself don’t want to see a sequal, it’s just that it seems a little too soon. Maybe more to others that to me personally, but still. Pray harder.

Dead Space

Story
You play as Isaac Clark, a poor slob who gets stuck on a derelict spacecraft, which is teaming with ravenous “necromorphs,” reanimated corpses made by some alien lifeform.

Gameplay
This is quite a creepy survival horror game. Now it usually takes a lot to scare me, but it does make me jump. The music really sets the stage with lots of tension and leaves you on edge, very threatening atmosphere. There’s just something about it that sends terror shooting through you at the beginning of the game when you’re being chased to the elevator by the aliens.

Dead Space is a third person over the shoulder shooter. It has an interesting mechanic where you tap the right thumbstick, which sends out a holographic line to your next objective. This really helps keep you on track. There’s also a holo map which is kind of annoying, but you get used to it. As you go through the game you want to keep an eye out for power nodes, which can be used to upgrade your weapons, suit and abilities. Isaac aquires a stasis module, that temporarily slows objects and enemies. There’s also a kinesis module which allows him to pick up things, like ammo. You can even pick up your enemies severed claws and hurl them at the necromorphs. When I really started to try that strategy I was playing on the highest difficulty, therefore it took a while to kill any enemies.

In this survival horror game there are some very unique weapons. Most of them are mining tools, which also work quite nicely for dismembering limbs. Now this is important since the necromorphs are very hard to kill, you literally need to tear them apart. Shooting off appendages does extra damage and slows your enemies down. I usually try to cut their legs off and then pick them apart as they crawl towards me.

The game has a very satisfying ending, and the last boss isn’t overwhelmingly hard. I actually managed to beat him on the highest difficulty without dying.

Replayability
Medium replayability, there’s no multiplayer in Dead Space. One nice thing about the game is that when you beat it you can play through it again with all your guns; as well as all your weapon, suit and module upgrades.

Overal Rating:9.2/10
One of the scariest games out there, if you like being creeped out, Dead Space is for you. Go ahead, play it at night with the lights out.

Resident Evil 5 Review

Story
Resident Evil 5, Capcom’s newest editions to it's survival horror series arrived in March of 2009. The story revolve’s around Chris Redfield and his new partner Sheva Alomar; the events take place in Africa. It seems that there is a bio-hazard threat there, the Las Plagas parasite from the fourth game makes a return.

Gameplay
They tweaked the control set up, you can edit it to be like it was in Resident Evil 4, but now it’s taken on a more traditional shooter control scheme, like Dead Space. Ready your gun with the left trigger, aim with the right thumbstick and shoot with right. You’re still stationary when you’re aiming though. It was really nice to be able to assign items and weapons to the D-pad, it made things a lot more streamlined. However, if there were any other items in your inventory that you wanted to use, you had to hit the Y button to select and use everything not designated by your D-pad. And this time though it doesn’t pause the game, you can still be attacked and killed. It was a little aggravating and takes some getting used to, you need to be kinda quick about it in combat situations. Just be sure to know what is where.

Co-op play is a huge part of this game, as you will always be accompanied throughout the game by Sheva(once you beat the game you can choose either Chris or Sheva). Your accomplice can be controlled by the A.I., which can hold it’s own for the most part. Forget about play with the computer though on the hardest difficulty, professional. It’s definitely preferred that you have another person play through with you, either through split-screen or online.

The multiplayer aspects of Resident Evil 5 could have been implemented a little better, joining a game means waiting for the host to die or otherwise starting over from the last check point. So you sit there wondering if the other person is ignoring you, or is just doing really well.

The market and upgrading has lost it’s personality as there isn’t a merchant to come across like in RE 4. It is convenient though that every time you start up you can select and swap your equipment, buy items and upgrade your weapons. This way you can go into each chapter fresh and ready. You can also give ammo to your teammate, but not weapons, unfortunately(unless they're playing on your gamer profile).

Replayability
There’s plenty of reasons to keep playing after you beat the game: achievements, unlimited ammo for your guns, mini action figure collection, alternate custumes and different difficulties.

Overall rating:9/10
Very solid game, fun to play with other people. Some online multiplayer aspects are annoying, but other than that, a highly recommended game.

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