Wednesday, June 30, 2010

This Doesn’t Look Easy Anymore

Just watched some Portal 2 gameplay and man they filled it up with so much stuff. Aperture of Science looks like a high-tech ACME factory. If you played the first Portal, it was hard, but it was easy enough to get through all the puzzles they had in store. The concept was a bit simple. Make portals for either you to travel or move certain objects around to get to the next area. But as you learn its also much more than that. Its no exception with Portal 2, making that much more into even more. Well, if that makes sense watch what you will expect in the next Portal game with gameplay footage:

Yeah, I have no idea how I’m going to replicate getting through with the gels either. Or some of the stuff near the end either. Expect to blow your mind and get stumped again when Portal 2 comes out sometime in 2011 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Another Classic Returns

Remember the days of the Dreamcast and how many incredible games it has? And now are being ported over to the Xbox 360? Well, one of those awesome games isn’t going to the 360 surprisingly. I kinda wonder why, but I think its also because Sony owns a bit of licensing on the game. But so does Windows…how does that work out? Its also going on WiiWare which just seems bizarre to me. Which classic do I speak of? Well, its a classic among certain people, because it was, indeed, a strange game. The game I speak of is MDK2. No, not Mario vs. Donkey Kong, its literally MDK. And when I mean strange, it was indeed a strange game. It has a doctor named Fluke Hawkins who suspiciously looks like Doctor Wiley from the Mega Man games. A janitor who plays the hero while wearing the infamous bizarre suit. And a 6-legged robot dog who helps out the hero while welding guns. Yeah, your right, there are stranger games than this. Oh yeah and something about aliens? Well, if you haven’t played, see for yourself when the game comes out for the Wii in Winter and the PC,(yeah I guess they still have rights then) as MDK 2 HD, soon after.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Its Here…

This is the little surprise I was talking about. Had to trade in the older model for the newer model to pay some of it off, but here’s what I got. Keep going down a bit….

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

SDC11658

Yep, here it is! I just bought the new Xbox 360 slim! Review will be in a couple of days.

Update: Studio Ghibli Makes Video Games Too

And are equally amazing to the movies they make! Good lord, look how good this game is looking!:

Its like its straight from a Ghibli animated movie! Man how amazing!:

And now some Gameplay with HUD (The one above looks like it could be gameplay too…):

Something about it being in 3D and on the PS3:

And not sure exactly what these mean, but both look exactly alike:

Wowsers. Looks like this blog saw an extra surprise this week. Damn it Playstation 3, don’t tempt me…I sure wish and hope they somehow port it to the Xbox 360. They probably won’t do that. Its coming to the Nintendo DS and Playstation 3 next year in Japan. Apparently it features sound direction by Joe Hisaishi, his music sounds beautiful if you look it up. This may be the reason I should get a PS3 sometime soon…

And now a trailer:


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

E3 Aftermath: I Want to Believe

Yeah I’m late with this, but I did a lot of reading and video watching so I have an excuse. 3DS games are just coming in more by the number. Nintendo surely wants to make sure there are plenty of games available when the game launches next year. Before that I wanted to show a few more close up videos on the 3DS right after Nintendo’s Conference. Even if its some of the same thing we have seen before, I never get tired of how amazing it looks (The row of blondes may be distracting):

Just recently a new trailer has appeared for the 3DS:

Very cool stuff. Really can’t wait for it now.

A few surprises are in store for this week. One I cannot tell you about, since it is, again, a surprise. The other surprise may not be so welcoming, since I will be testing a feature here on blogger. Which includes ads popping up in some places. I will only be testing it for a week, so if it doesn’t seem like a good idea, I’ll remove it for good and you won’t be seeing it again.

Now back to E3 stuff: While E3 had a ton of good moments, it also ran into the strange and weird during the 3rd party stuff. Its just as strange as some of their games.This week I’ll run a feature of the strange and bizarre things that happened. Most of which happened at Konami’s conference. What a strange experience that was. And of course, no E3 list is complete with the top 10 things shown at E3. We already know who’s going to be Number 1. Its no question really. But what about the other stuff? Check out later this week on that.

I know I didn’t really talk about E3’s day 3 and 4, but nothing can really beat what happened at Nintendo’s conference. Even in terms of weirdness. I did forget to show one game that’s kinda got my eye fixated on for the Xbox 360 and PS3 systems. It has super fast paced action, but it has unfortunate corny dialogue in the trailer, which I hope will change. It does have to do with the director of the game who has done all the Resident Evil games. So you know its going to be there. Well even with the dialogue, I’ve kinda dreamed of games with this style of action. Here’s the trailer with B-movie dialogue and must stop that from happening:

Apparently this is what happens if Hilary Clinton had become President. Now for some more gameplay:

Yeah. Now that’s what I like to see in a video game, besides the corny dialogue which I hope they fix and most likely will not. I’ve heard the game being dissed though. That it’s similar to Lost Planet style gameplay which I disagree on and wonder why it would be a bad point. Sure Lost Planet was ok and they gameplay didn’t get me into it, but it was still pretty good. But the only thing I see of Lost Planet here is the ability to see an enemy’s health bar which is similar to Lost Planet’s style.

Oh, and some may have missed this:

Crazy gameplay. You totally need an HD TV and a big one at that to play it. I haven’t played many Castlevania games, But I would pick this one one if I could. Oh and you can play as Alucard again in this game from the infamous SOTN Castlevania game. Cool stuff.

Oh, and this was the best game presented at Ubisoft and the best Kinect game I have seen so far:

Well not much else to say about this year’s E3, besides the Bizarre and Best of stuff being posted later this week. I will leave you with a celebrity sighting at E3. Enjoy:

By the way, that’s not the only one…

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Update: E3 2010 Day 2: Nintendo Pwns and Sony Sucks Again

There’s nothing I can say that can really explain how epic and awesome Nintendo’s conference was. At the top of the list the two most awesome things announced and shown where these two:

Its here and works beautifully (not seamlessly though, I’ll explain further).

Yay! New Zelda Wii game!

See two things to get excited about already. Nintendo was full of surprises. You can say Nintendo won E3 overall. Just about every single thing they announced needed some kind of cheer and applause. The 3DS presentation was one for the ages. Nintendo always comes up with clever stuff, no matter how silly it is. The same can be said for the 3DS trailers that were shown. The 3D was simulated since 3D can’t be shown again when recorded. Its like one of those things you can only see in person. You can view more pics here. Details as follows:

· 3D Switch Button (in case nausea may and probably will kick in)

· 3 Cameras, 2 up front, for 3D pictures, and one at the front for the regular 2D pictures. I assure you it won’t be used as much.

· Analog Stick, also used as a Slide Pad (As shown in this Metal Gear Solid 3DS trailer, yep getting a Metal Gear game too)

· A touch screen they kept utilized in the system

· And possible touch Home, Start, and Select buttons

· And of course the 3D [wide] screen using some kind of black magic

I seriously wish I could see the 3D. There’s no image or video that can show what those people are seeing exactly. It’s some sort of new unique 3D system that’s being used there. Some awesome witchcraft there.

The first game to be announced for the 3DS was this:

Kid Icarus finally returns. Guess there was good reason to wait so long for a new game to appear. And for the new 3DS system which is nice. An appropriate greeting as well. And dude, that’s 3DS gameplay? That is high quality stuff there.

Before this was the Zelda Wii announcement. I thought 3DS was bigger in a way. But Zelda was also awesome.

Mr. Miyamoto-san explains the game (by video and somehow being dubbed much like a Japanese movie), but instead hands it off to a presenter, who sucks:

And then Mr. Miyamoto makes an appearance! Epic stuff here.

Now for more announcements. Tons of Nintendo games were announced. I aint kidding, take a look:

Another Wii party game, with a literal name this time. And somehow this American Family understands Kanji.

Goldeneye was also officially announced. You can see the leaked yet HQ trailer in the previous post. Now time for some Epic Mickey footage. Man, I can’t get enough of Epic Mickey either:

And some gameplay:

Awesome, just awesome. In the gameplay you will notice the cutscenes are different from the gameplay. Its quite beautifully drawn and is meant to be the way it is. Its a nice touch to a great looking Disney game. This will be on my buy list for sure.

Now here come some surprises. A really great secret Nintendo has kept is the next Kirby game. The trailer, also epic, explains all:

A painfully cute game. What's this?! Another surprise!?:

I totally didn’t see this coming. Jesus, things like this really take the wind out of you when you see so much epicness in one sitting. A slew of 3DS games were announced to make an appearance, although they may not be launch titles. The most important include: Resident Evil: Revelations, Kingdom Hearts 3D, Street Fighter IV, and Metal Gear Solid Franchise. More epic stuff. A Nintendogs for the 3DS was announced, and +Cats. Because they just go well together don’t they? You could also watch Hollywood movies on the 3DS, in 3D! Clever. Before the show was over a surprise has arisen. A ton of girls appeared with 3DS’ were attached to themselves and were going to about each person in the room so that they can preview the 3DS for themselves. Oh, lucky people….

That was it for the Nintendo Conference. Sony was, well, only about a couple of things were worth mentioning. Sony may soon abandon the PSP as the only title announced was Patapon 3. Very disappointing. What was surprising was this:

Why Valve, why? Can’t you see how much Microsoft (kinda) and Nintendo is kicking so much Sony ass right now? I mean, its cool, but why can’t the Xbox 360 get some Portal cube hearts….

Playstation Plus was also somewhat of a surprise. It was rumored Playstation would get a kind of Xbox Live service, and they did and its worse than Xbox Live. Oh, how low can one system sink? Its only going to get worse. The service for a year is $49.99, and 3 months is $17.99 (Xbox live is cheaper). Apparently you get tons of free content and discounts on stuff, but if people pay, more things will be PSPlus exclusive. It will get worse I can guarantee that. And I also heard that the DLC you buy with Plus is only available as long as you have the subscription. Come again? Even Xbox Live doesn’t pull that crap. Yep, online will soon be no longer free. What a sad day for Sony. Its probably because of all the money they lost on PSP Go’s and PS3s. Well, new Xbox 360 it is.

Oh, and this was announced:

Killzone 3 was also shown in 3D. And there’s not much else worth mentioning. Sorcery did look a bit promising, not enough to entice the Playstation Move on me though. Kevin Butler, Playstation’s Human Mascot, made an appearance which was the only epic thing seen in the whole show. His speech was impressive. Take a look if you wish. I understand if you hate him though. You can either like him or hate him:

I especially like the zingers he makes towards Microsoft. They had it coming.

That’s it for Sony. Like I said, disappointing and just a bit horrible. Nintendo recently made some new announcements which include new 3DS games. And they are remakes of old Nintendo 64 games! More awesome stuff.

Starfox re-returns! Also take note, this is a demo. Yes this is being played at E3 as we speak. Not sure if that’s all the touch screen will be used for, I certainly hope not, but still a remake is still awesome. More screens here.

This is more of a rumor than an announcement, but holy crap! Its Zelda: Ocarina of Time remade for the 3DS! Kotaku explains it was found when rummaging around Nintendo’s E3 site.

And here are the rest. First pic is Paper Mario 3DS, Mario Kart 3DS, and Pilot Wings for the 3DS. Finally, since Wii never got it, I might as well settle for the 3DS to get Pilot Wings.Pikmin is till making its way for the Wii, but apparently wasn’t E3 ready. Well, thank you Nintendo, for giving us the future. Sony…I can’t even look at you anymore. For shame.


Time for a shiny new Marvel vs. Capcom 3: FTW trailer:

E3 2010 Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft Conference

Well, what a day. Lots to discuss and lots of things to see. There was indeed lots of cool and awesome stuff to see. But where there's cool stuff, there's also a bunch of crap no one really cares about. The later seems to be the stuff that accumulated most of the first day of E3; to my disappointment. Even if there was that, the cool stuff of E3 I will show here to try and forget about the bad stuff. Lets start with the best thing to come out of E3 today, the announcement of the new Xbox 360 [Slim] Console. Now I have to buy it again:

Yep, there it is. In all its glossingly blinding glory. Here’s a size comparison:

Yep its smaller. Here are some specs:

• Touch sensitive on/off and eject buttons (like the PS3)
• "Much quieter"
• 250GB internal hard drive, which is still swappable.
• A custom Kinect port (not a standard USB port—it's a USB port that can feed more power)
• There are five USB ports now, with three in the back and two in the front
• AV cable included, an HDMI and optical audio
• Different power supply—it's still big but nearly weightless
• External Xbox 360 hard drives and memory units are NOT compatible with the new Xbox
• Other accessories are
• Internal components that are changed: two small fans changed into one large fan for quieter operation, 45nm integrated CPU and GPU

It could also mean no more Red Ring of Death! I really want this now. More pics found here and here.

Lets see, most of the Kinect launch titles pretty much sucked. They all need a lot of work and most of the games are Wii Sports clones. The only game that had potential was this:

Although when they had a preview of this the night before, it was mostly rehearsed so it needs work too. Nothing really makes sense in the trailer at the same time. If you are a Star Wars fan you would notice that Droid tanks and a Droid fighter don’t belong with Stormtroopers. Just watch it, even if its a bit mess when speaking canon-wise.

Now here comes the awesome stuff:

It may not be so stealthy, but you gotta admit playing as Raiden and slicing stuff is quite awesome, no?

I’m going to be incredibly brief as you can see, today as the trailers pretty much speak for themselves. Other stuff was talked about, but like I said its boring. The trailers are what made the show. The same can be said for this Dead Space 2 footage:

I still sense a horror factor here, even if it is said to be more of a shooter and less survival horror.

Remember the Star Wars Cinematic Trailer last year? Well a new one was shown and focuses on the light side characters:

I am stuck between choosing Light side and Dark side now. Both show their own side of being awesome.

Next trailer is not officially announced. IGN leaked it before Activision may or may not announce this tomorrow. And seeing as you may see the title of the video, some may or may not hate this:

Yep, apparently the rights to make this went through and this is the aftermath. I still don’t really know what to make of this. Does Jaws have a mustache? I’m worried this may turn out for the worst, as much as I don’t want it to either…

Well what's next? Oh right, Gears of Wars 3. This game is coming along very nicely:

Apparently its 4 player (probably online) co-op and not one, but two girls are playable. I guess this game really wants to show that girls can fight too.

Even if it is a movie, it was a comic before and had video games oriented into it. And now its a game? Madness!:

Now I shall end it with a trailer for Halo Reach. I would show some videos for Ubisoft, but I’m sorry to say it was just too awkward and embarrassing to show exactly what happened. That's another post for another day. Joel McHale apparently didn’t have his usual comedy staff and things were left unexplained. They also managed to make their own Wii Vitality Sensor which is supposed to give you energy on the go somehow? Laser Tag was somehow revived and sad part was no one really cared. Only three things to actually gain my respect was Rez being introduced for Kinect (best Kinect game so far), Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Poor Ubisoft, you could have redeemed yourself in the end, but you left everyone in the dark and creeped out. Seriously what happened there? (It ended like this, seriously)

Well, to end this with a high note, here’s the Halo Reach Campaign trailer, complete with a dogfight, enjoy!:

I only hope Nintendo’s and Playstation’s conferences aren’t awkward and pointless as with previous years. Here’s hoping for the best.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Kinect Four

Yes, yes a few hours ago Microsoft unveiled (through the theatrics of Cirque du Soleil and whatever’s happening in the picture above) Project Natal’s official name to be Kinect. There’s a few Kin names out there. The Microsoft phone Kin and Amazon’s Kindle to name a couple. A slew of games were also announced for Kinect; all which include Kinect Sports, (sound familiar? Its exactly the same as Wii Sports) Kinect Adventures, and Kinectimals for the cat person (yeah, sounds creepy). Another game which doesn’t have Kinect in the name is a Star Wars game. Yeah! Now that's good news. Its also a lightsaber game, Finally a something good to come out of all this. However you call this Motion [Free] control society now, we finally get a Star Wars game. Also previewed was Minority Report like screens to be seen in the Xbox 360 dashboard sometime when Kinect comes out.

Time to Compare:

Project Natal:

Kinect:

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Real E3 2010 Preview

Yay, less than a day away till E3! Well I won’t be there to actually cover it, like in the past, I will just post up the most important stuff shown at E3. Its always been cool to see the trailers of stuff we usually won’t get until next year right? Well anyways before E3 has even started we have already gotten some trailers to some games that will be shown at E3 this week. Its said that its not even the important stuff. Wonder what else E3 has for us this year. There are a wide variety of brilliant games being shown this year. It may very well be the best E3 we have gotten in years. From more stuff being shown of [Project] Natal, as it comes out later this year, to the Playstation Move, which isn’t my favorite concept, and to Nintendo’s next peripheral (did you forget the Wii Vitality Sensor?) and new portable console, there is a bunch to cover this year. There’s already a bunch of posters being laid out in Los Angeles, I wish I could just go for a peak, and it looks pretty awesome. Especially that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 bus poster.

Now here’s a bunch of video’s showing either gameplay or cool CGI scenes for some video games. They better show off some actual gameplay at E3 after showing the cutscenes:

XCOM is now a first person shooter (went the way of Fallout 3):

Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions: This Spiderman game has potential. It features 4 different dimensions in which Spiderman is featured in. The third dimension was just announced:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II: Really loving the graphics here. I haven’t played the first game yet, but this is looking good too:

I don’t really know why they didn’t show this at E3, but here’s some Dead Space 2 gameplay:

I really like the trailer for this next game. What I don’t like is how its an MMO. It should be more of an RTS. Why an MMO? I don’t know:

Here’s a Killzone 3 trailer. And here’s to another 5 year wait:

Here’s the new Gran Turismo 5 trailer which is missing a release date:

In case you missed it before or want to see it again, here’s the new Mortal Kombat trailer:

Here’s also a look at the new Rock Band 3 controllers. The controllers are slightly more accurate. Or should I say the Guitar is more accurate with its 102 buttons. I’m sure Guitar Hero is cooking something up as well, but for now Rock Band 3 stuff:

Yes, a keyboard. So you can play Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” as many times as you wish.

Not sure completely what this is (I’m no music tech guy), but I think its an extra controller for a mic. For some reason.

Lots of buttons.

And a gameplay picture.

There was also this 3DS mockup I found which they took from a circuit board which is supposedly the circuit board of a 3DS, but wouldn’t you rather wait till Tuesday?



Update: A New Opponent Arrives!

What's that?! Something new on the Xbox 360 horizon? A new Xbox? Well sorta. Its an updated 360 to compete with the PS3 Slim. More details will be shown at the Xbox conference. Oh, and Project Natal may have been officially called Kinect now.

Monday, June 7, 2010

E3 2010 (Semi) Preview

E3 is coming fast. Blazingly fast. New things are semi being announced each day. Well mostly rumors, but interesting rumors. The first up is no rumor but a simple fact. A fact which probably we live by everyday being gamers or using the computer and whatnot. That fact is no one is going to look good playing [Project] Natal. No one. We look silly already using controllers or seeing someone type on a computer (like me). When we saw it being played last year most assumed it would involve flailing. It is. Unless you think its too embarrassing to be caught on film doing the act, well it is:

It will be another thing to probably not worry about in the future as it already looks awkward what we do everyday. This is a bit different too, but try not to be in front of a mirror or stand in back of someone using a Natal.

Here’s the rumor:

Some people have been saying that the 3DS (yeah its still happening) that it will probably have Gamecube graphics, which would sound awesome, but a little unrealistic really; for our technology era anyway. Well, how about I take that up a few notches and say that may be an understatement. IGN claims, off record, that it could exceed Nintendo Wii capabilities and close to having HD capabilities, about the same processing power as an Xbox 360. Now that’s unrealistic, and probably an exaggeration on both IGN’s and where ever they get their sources. Sure its probably not even close to being real, but I could buy the Gamecube rumor somehow. Nintendo has surprised us in the past for how they will utilize their next console systems. Although not crazy on the 3D part…

Sure, E3 is within a week, and what I’m about to talk about comes out within days, but even though some people aren’t happy about the HD port; its still one of my favorite Super Nintendo games:

Groovy. Earthworm Jim has been remade in HD. Actually they announced this long ago, and its been ages since its announcement (see the 2009?). But so far everything looks swell, including a few bonuses: (as sampled above) HD improvement, difficulty levels, “Big Bruty” level which was only included in the Sega CD and PC editions of the older game, and 4 player co-op. That’s right. Not versus, but co-op which is even more awesome. But somewhat weird. Well anyways, I’ll be sure to pick this up soon. Comes out on the Xbox 360 June 6th and the PSN, a bit later on. More HD screens here.

Picture of the day:

Found this while browsing through pictures of Star Wars Weekends at Disneyland. I’m not entirely sure why, but part of me made me laugh when I saw this. For the life of me, I don’t know how she is doing that autograph:

Oh and by the way. For some reason, and unknown reason, video game makers decided to get dark and actually decide on something kinda cool by doing a Third-Person [wand] shooter for the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows video game. I might actually think about getting it. I actually want this to be good:

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Its Full of Clouds and Bushes

This is probably the saddest and yet most beautiful Mario fanmade cartoon I have ever seen. Apparently a secret is revealed, but one we may all know too well already (not me):

"bit and run" -- Mario's Ladder from Cory Godbey on Vimeo.