Everyone love the Gorn — after all, who doesn’t have fond memories of Kirk battling a Gorn with styrofoam rocks? I know I do, and that’s why I was excited to hear they’ll be making an appearance in Namco Bandai’s upcoming Star Trek third-person platformer. The game takes place in the Abramsverse, between the first and second film, which is currently in post production. Not surprisingly, Kirk and Spock’s appearance in the game are modeled after actors Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto respectively. We were treated to a fresh trailer during Namco Bandai’s Game Day 2012 conference the other month, but even though E3 is currently full swing, we haven’t seen any new footage just yet. They have, however, release a few more screenshots on the official website, one of which features Kirk confronting a Gorn at phaser point. Star Trek should hit consoles sometime in early 2013.
It’s been a lukewarm E3 so far. Today, Nintendo will be showing off its good at their press conference, but as of this writing, I haven’t had a chance to see much beyond their initial pre-E3 offerings. Microsoft had a solid showing of first party sequels, interactive features, and third party treats here and there, and while all of that seemed interesting, most of it will be finding its way to another platform. In fact, the whole Smart Glass thing seems a bit like a desperate attempt to replicate the experience offered by Nintendo’s upcoming WiiU tablet interface. That said, there were a few gems that shined slightly brighter than the others yesterday. Chief among them was this bit of gameplay from Naughty Dog’s upcoming PS3 exclusive, The Last of Us.
In case you haven’t had a chance to catch the latest trailer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance — yes, that’s a real word, I know — then feast your eyes. Konami recently uploaded this latest trailer in preparation for E3, later this week. Mind you, it’s incredibly violent and there’s plenty of blood, so if that’s not your sort of thing, you might want to skip it. On the other hand, it’s pretty wicked stuff. How well it’ll actually play remains to be seen, especially considering the project has been outsourced to Platinum games, but if its anything like Bayonetta, then I imagine we’re in for a treat. Otherwise, it’ll be a bit of a toss up. To be honest, there just seems to be too much going on, but who am I to doubt Hideo Kojima? I’m sure if it was so terrible, he’d be the first to state so. He’s been candid about that sort of thing in past, after all.
It’s the week for indie projects, right before E3 and the huge companies show off their new games, we’ve seen a fair amount of cool new smaller ideas crop up. StarForge is a game coming out of the Minecraft game cyclone: build with materials in a block style. Yet, it feels wholly original and very unique, mostly in that it also features real-time land deformation and monsters that will attack your bases. Another interesting ability is that you can build all the way up into space around the planet you play on, with no loading in between. It seems like you could create some pretty crazy setups with your buddies, and diving from the outer atmosphere to ground level looks like a blast. StarForge is still only in a rough stage at the moment, but it is free-to-play, so you can download it here!
Given the popularity of zombies, I simply must bring up the recent ARMA II mod: DayZ. It’s a hardcore, permadeath online game that almost forces the player to take on a role-playing position. Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which an infection has wiped out most of the population and turned the rest into zombies, you must survive and scavenge using only your wits. Anyone can kill and steal whatever they want, leading to most players playing as roving solitary bandits. However, some people band together with friends or even strangers to survive for longer periods. However, once you die, you must start a new character back at the very beginning, with nothing. This fan-made trailer, while overly-dramatic, will give you a good idea of how the mod works. Read more…
The video game we all knew was coming has now got a trailer, thanks to the massive E3 week about to roll through. Plastic Gandalf faces off against the Balrog, Frodo carries the hilariously-oversized One Ring, and Boromir once again laments the presence of a cave troll. The use of voice clips from the movie works for a trailer, but I wonder how the characters will be voiced in-game, if they’re voiced at all? Anyway, the LEGO games have been solid so far (if a bit too numerous to count), so I’m sure this will be another great addition to the collection. LEGO Lord of the Rings will arrive in October this year, just in time for the Hobbit marketing blitz.
Set to be officially unveiled next week at E3, LucasArts has begun talking about their next big game, aimed at hardcore Star Wars fans: Star Wars 1313. It’ll be centered around criminal organizations and the grimy underbelly of Coruscant on Level 1313. You play as a bounty hunter navigating this treacherous area, and rather than deal with the the same Jedi and lightsaber business from every other Star Wars game (according to LucasArts) this will be noticeably separate from that. It’ll be a third-person “cinematic action adventure” so who knows what that means, but we’ll find out when E3 rolls around. Read more…
Don’t just take my word for it, listen to Tim Schafer and the “Bastion narrator guy” tell you – Humble Indie Bundle V is amazing. The premise is the same as always: pay what you want for four great indie games, and if you pay above the average, you get a fifth. Plus it all goes to charity! The games this time around are LIMBO, Psychonauts, Amnesia, Sword & Sworcery EP, and Bastion, the fifth unlockable game. Not only that, you get each game’s respective soundtrack (and all of them are pretty darn good). There’s really no reason not to pick this up, even if you have most of these games already. 13 days are left, so don’t wait too long.
Ready for another trip back into Skyrim? Bethesda has finally shown the first trailer for the upcoming Skyrim expansion, Dawnguard, and for Elder Scrolls fans, this looks to be a nifty new addition. Vampires look to be coming back in a big way, and according to the trailer, the Dawnguard will be who they’re up against. Also, the vampires want to get rid of the sun, which seems to be a pretty difficult task to me, given that, you know, it’s the sun. But magic can conjure up many things, so we’ll have to see this summer when it arrives on Xbox 360 first for 1600 points, then one month later on other platforms.
Hideo Kojima is much like you fans: he wants to create a new Zone of the Enders game. Sadly, he hasn’t been able to yet, but he’s recently shown off his concept for another game in the series, called Enders Project. While Kojima himself is busy with other games, he’s tasked other people at Konami to handle it (Ryosuke Toriyama is creative director and Yoji Shinkawa is the designer and illustrator). They’ve built up some impressive looking models and have them running in the Fox Engine, but only time will tell if the game will be fully made. Still, given that Kojima is putting this out there, it seems he feels pretty confident that it will succeed. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 24, 2012 in Videogames
The other day, Nike released an over-the-top interactive video to promote their line of soccer — or football, if you prefer — cleats. The video, titled “My Time is Now” allows you to click on Easter eggs hidden throughout the clip for an in-depth look at the various aspects of the advertisement, some of which are more entertaining than others. One such hidden gem is this quick little Sonic the Hedgehog mini-game featured about two-thirds of the way through the ad, which can be accessed by clicking on a Sonic the Hedgehog-colored cleat pictured in the background. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 21, 2012 in Videogames
Meat Bun has unveiled Check Point, their latest line of gaming-inspired fashion tees. The first part of the series feature designs inspired by classic racing titles like Mario Kart, Out Run and Daytona USA. For whatever reason, there also appears to be a design called Ninja Magic featuring what I imagine would be the ninja from Shinobi on a skateboard, the only commonality being that both were incredibly popular in the 80s. That said, it’s kind of strange but awesome design.
While an Elder Scrolls MMO has already been announced, many people just want co-op Skyrim. Thankfully, as with previous Elder Scrolls games, the modding community is stepping up and creating exactly that. While it’s still buggy and imperfect, you and your buddies can hop around in your Skyrim world and explore a bit. The team promises to continue to add more features, eventually allowing most of the game to be played with your friends. It’s mighty impressive what modders can do and if I can eventually battle Alduin with my girlfriend, that’ll be a blast. Check out the video above for the latest features and download the mod on their site. Read more…
Nintendo has decided to promote the upcoming Japanese release of Pokémon Black & White 2 with a lengthy animated short. Like the Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC trailer we posted earlier this week, the audio is in Japanese only, but the animation itself is pretty gorgeous and worth watching. Japan’s getting their hands on both sequels next month, but we’re stuck waiting till fall for own localized copies. Before you ask, no the game won’t feature any animated cut-scenes like this, but that’s alright since we’re getting to view this online free of charge. I just hope Nintendo of America takes the time to dub the short in the months leading up to our North American release later this year.
With the recent release of Blizzard’s latest cash cow, Diablo 3, BioWare hopes to rekindle gamers’ interest in their Star Wars MMORPG, The Old Republic by announcing another free pass weekend. The move is designed to bolster their subscriptions, following a sharp decline in users from 1.7 million to 1.3 in the last two months alone. Needless to say, that news alone doesn’t bode too well for the fledgling title. That said, EA has suggested in the past that the game could remain profitable with as low as 500,000 subscribers, and seem convinced that the recent declines consist primarily of casual gamers, and not their hardcore MMO base. I’m not as easily convinced — but then again, I don’t play MMORPGs either, so I’m not sure I can offer an informed opinion on the matter. That said, the numbers alone don’t lie. If you want to try The Old Republic for free this weekend, I’ve included details after the jump.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 15, 2012 in Videogames
Square Enix has released a preview trailer for their upcoming Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Prologue DLC Requiem of the Goddess. If you’re on the fence about whether or not it’s worth your time, you’ll probably want to watch the clip and decide for yourself. On the other hand, it might be a bit spoileriffic for others — fortunately, the dialog you’ll hear during this trailer is in Japanese, without English subtitles. Other than that, the most it might spoil is an actual in-game battle sequence between Lightning and Caius, complete with cut-scenes. Personally, I think it looks pretty awesome. Let’s just hope the new chapter actually provide more answers than questions. At this point, I think fans deserve a proper ending. I’ve included some screens from the trailer after the break.
Instant kills are a common thing in games, and they’re blast when you’re the one executing them. However when you’re on the receiving end, they can be pretty frustrating. Corridor Digital combined many of the most well-known insta-kill attacks into one silly video, excellent for your weekend entertainment. Everyone from Master Chief, to the Spy, to a Combine officer hop into the battle and Corridor Digital does a great job re-creating them in live-action. Great work!
The Minecraft money train keeps on rolling: on Wednesday, Minecraft released for the Xbox 360. Pretty cool, right? Especially for Notch and Microsoft as the game has already sold more than any other digital game on Xbox Live Arcade, in just the first 24 hours. Notch reported that the game has already become profitable, which is no surprise. It isn’t even updated to the same version as the PC game (it’s based on a year-old update of Minecraft and will be getting the other content later in updates), which just goes to show how popular Minecraft still is. 400,000 players popular, that is. Read more…
I’m not a huge Assassin’s Creed fan – I always had a hard time getting into the series. This trailer for Assassin’s Creed III, though, has me intrigued. The new animation engine for the game looks great as the main character, Connor, dashes about enemies and skewers them with ease. I’m also interested in escaping through buildings and ditching pursuers, as shown in the trailer. Can you do this with almost any house, or are they specific events? Oh, and fix some of those tree branches, Ubisoft: they’re much too straight.
Square Enix’s latest set of downloadable content for Final Fantasy XIII-2 is set for release on May 15th. The long awaited Lightening chapter is said to be included, along with a 16 piece costume set for your moogle, Serah’s stylish White Mage outfit, as well as Noel’s matching Black Mage set. They’ll also be releasing the Snow & Valfodr arena battle on the same day. Like with the previous arena battles, gamers will have a chance to capture and use Snow or Valfodr as in place of their usual monster slot during battles. Although the news was leaked by Playstation Taiwan along with price points for each item, the North American prices will likely differ slightly, so I didn’t bother listing them for you. That said, I imagine the prices will be on par with the previous DLC sets that’ve been released thus far.
I love how papercraft has been really picking up steam and becoming popular. It’s really incredible to see some of the things people make, and not all of it is the traditional boxy models. Cameron Garland has made a “papersculpt,” which is layers of paper laid on top of one another to give a dimensional feel to the creation. This Zelda: Twilight Princess set of weapons and items he created are super-detailed – they almost looked like drawings to me at first. It was on sale for $300, but it looks like someone has already gotten to it. Now this is giving me the urge to get out my X-acto knife and try doing it myself! Read more…
Here’s a great weekend-capper: Rickonami on YouTube has recreated the Star Fox intro using CGI. Yup, the whole thing, and he’s done an excellent job with it! This single video has made me more nostalgic for Star Fox than the recent Star Fox 64 3DS remake, so that’s saying something. I do like that he included the slightly-creepy-but-still-endearing puppets of the Star Fox crew as the profile images – it adds to the awesome factor. I hope to see more fantastic work from Rickonami in the future… he’s got talent!
After much guessing, Game Informer’s exclusive cover story for their upcoming issue is none other than the heavily-rumored Elder Scrolls Online, a new MMO set in the expansive Elder Scrolls world. The MMO will encompass all of Tamriel, such as Elsweyr, Skyrim, and beyond. The setting, however, is a millenium before the events of the last Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, allowing for plenty of new and different settings. I’m interested in how this will play out, as I’m not sure an Elder Scrolls MMO is necessarily the next step. The game is set for 2013 on both PC and Mac. Read more…
