» third person shooter

I haven’t heard any news for Bayonetta for a few months now, the last trailer was released back in October 2008. Today out of the blue, I had a sudden urge to watch the trailers from Gametrailers.com. With around 6 more months before the release, hopefully its released globally and not just Japan, that’s the only thing I could do to sustain my thirst for this game.

For those of you who has no idea what Bayonetta is, I can sum it up in one sentence – You play as Sarah Palin, look-a-like, instead of Dante in Devil May Cry. Based on the trailers, I think her moves are even faster, more elegant and of course sexier than those in Devil May Cry. I mean, you got an extremely attractive female protagonist with 4 guns, 2 in her hands and 2 just behind her heels, what more do you want? The guns-in-heels is very innovative in my opinion, I don’t recall any weapon of this sort before Bayonetta.

Aside from the guns, I believe she also uses a blade of some sort as well as summoning/transforming into some bad ass creature to fight against, as if killing the enemies by herself isn’t enough already.

The trailer also revealed a male character, maybe we can play him? But who cares when you got Bayonetta since he is not even half as cool as her?

Bayonetta will be released on September 1st 2009 based on Gametrailers, for now we will have to make do with the trailers and this one should sum up what I have just said, in a much sexier way. And I’m also curious if there will be any sort of multiplayer being implemented but then again based on history, this type of games generally don’t have a multiplayer side.

Let’s DANCE boys!

Gametrailers.com released a NY Comic-Con 09: Interview (which I was there myself!) for the soon-to-be-released movie game Wanted: Weapons of Fate. In the second half of the trailer is where the producer Nick Torchia mentioned there is an unlockable female character and claims to be “one of the coolest unlockable character you can play as…..”. This really leads me to believe that the unlockable character is Angelina Jolie since she is so cool and exotic just like in the movie. Please make her the unlockable character! Please!

Hopefully this game will turn out great because almost every single movie-turned-game has been mediocre. I hope this game will break that curse. A demo will be enough for me to decide if this game is wanted or not!

Fallout 3 has been released for almost a month now and having just finished the game last night I thought I would write my thoughts about this game instead of an actual review. Oh by the way I actually finished the game a little too fast, I still have tons of unexplored places and quests to check out I just didn’t expect to end so fast. Still, I would say I have spent more than 20 hours by going through some of the sub quests along the way.

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout 3 is really similar to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion except this time the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States in the year 2277 instead of in the medieval time. So you will be fighting your way through using guns most of the time and occasionally melee weapons like swords, sledgehammer and baseball bats. Graphicwise, while Oblivion looked amazing I think its safe to say that Fallout 3 looks even better because I can really feel I’m in a post-apocalyptic world with almost everything in rubbles, ashes and more than 50% of the time you will be exploring underground places. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be anyway given one was released more than 2 years ago.

  

Let’s forget about the graphics for a second, I still prefer Fallout 3 over Oblivion because of the time period the story takes place. I much prefer modern to future than going back in time and also prefer guns over magic. So if you don’t have these preferences and you have played Oblivion before then its pretty safe to say you will like Fallout 3 for sure. What I also like about Fallout 3 is the fact that there’s a VAT System which allows you to aim at specific body parts, it also tells you the percentage of success. At first when I saw the trailers demonstrating this system I thought it was going to be an overpowered feature. I can assure you its not because using the system will drain your AP (Action Points) so you can’t really use it again and again over a short period of time without replenishing your AP by using AP healing items. Normally you will have to wait for AP to naturally replenish itself. It might be a bit of an overpowered feature if you are playing on very easy to easy mode. When you are playing in harder difficulties you will need this feature when fighting against multiple enemies.

  

So I guess my point really boils down to whether you are into this time period or not, provided you played and actually liked Oblivion. Fallout 3 is a must for you if you liked it and either have no preference or are into modern-future time period and/or you prefer guns over magic.

  

I hope this little article will help you in deciding whether to get this game or not. And I always wonder if there will be a MMO version of either Oblivion or Fallout in the future.

  

Silent Hill: Homecoming was somewhat disappointing mainly because of its outdated graphics. I know it is not sufficient to judge a game solely based on game play. Although new elements were added to the game such as new combat system and new item/weapon navigations. And I was not happy with the new navigations by the way because you can waste your healing item, mainly the serum which heals you completely, by accidentally move your L3 button and have it selected without even knowing. The game play was kind of expected and I was really hoping for graphics that are next-gen. Ok, enough ranting and time to move on.

Dead Space generated a lot, and I mean A LOT of hype with all the animated trailers, comics and game trailers. Does this game live up to all the hype generated? I would, with no doubt say YES.

  

Story and controls
The story is about a repair ship which crash landed on a large mining ship called ISHIMURA. And as you can imagine, all the horror begins here and almost right away. Some of the controls are rather different from say, Call of Duty, like in order to run, you need to press L3 (move) and L2. The new controls might take a while to get used to but nothing major. If you have been keeping up with your first/third person shooting skills, the aiming should not be a problem either. Again make sure you aim the hands and legs and not the body unless you want to waste ammo. You can also treat your gun as a melee weapon at close range as well as pressing L2 for some foot stamping.

  

Game play and graphics
Dead Space uses a new and innovative user interface for accessing your items, weapons, map and missions etc. Its actually a holographic screen that is projected right in front of you in real time. So for example, you can have the map up and move around at the same time. So far I though, I can’t feel the “survival” part of this game because you get lots of ammo and healing items, I’ve picked up so many that I have to put them in the safe. (I’m playing on normal not easy by the way) Finally, safe points are in many places so I don’t really have to worry about having to restart from far back.

Speaking of which, there is also a store which you can buy healing items, upgrade your suit, called the Rig which increases the amount of items you can store as you go, new weapons, power nodes which are for upgrading your Rig’s max health(which is your health) and your weapons’ damage, ammo capacities etc. Weapon upgrades using the power nodes are performed by accessing another system called Upgrade Bench.

There is also something called Stasis, similar to the “Force” in Star Wars, in which you can manipulate objects by slowing them down or throwing them etc. Nothing new but you need them to solve some of the puzzles as you progerss through the game. And if you ever get stuck, simply press the R3 and a thin line will appear to show you which way you are suppose to go next based on your mission.

Even though both Silent Hill:Homecoming and Dead Space are survival horror, the former doesn’t really make you jump like Dead Space does. Being a survival horror fan for so many years, I’m pretty used to all the scare moments but I was constantly on my toes while playing Dead Space and got a few jumps actually. And finally this game supports the Trophy Collection.

First thing first, I’m sure everyone would want to know about this, YES the game supports 1080p high definition video output. Strangely it defaults to 720p similar to Call of Duty 4. It will only output to 720p unless you explicitly set your console, in my case PlayStation 3 to only output 1080p. And speaking of graphics, it is VERY graphical with tons of blood and body parts all over walls, floors, windows and anywhere you can imagine.

  

Also just to mention there’s no online multiplayer component, it would be even better if there was but with this game, it doesn’t really matter because the single player is just that exciting. And besides, I’m not sure how you can design the multiplayer side based on the story, hmm maybe there could be two races, the humans and those mutated humans? Just a thought.

  

  

Sound
Sound effects are top notch as well, you can hear random screams, objects banging onto other objects. One thing I dislike and makes this game a little bit less difficult and cuts some of the suspense is every time before monsters start coming at you, you will know because you will hear some “horror” noise. So whenever you hear it, you can pretty much expect to ready your limb cutting gun. But like I said before, I still managed to get a few scare from my 2 hours of play time.

  

Final Verdict
Is this game worth the $59.99? I would definitely think so, at least I didn’t regret buying this game like I did with Silent Hill: Homecoming. For those looking for a sci-fi + survival horror and those that are into limb cutting, then Dead Space will be the game.

There may be a part 2 if I find anything that’s worth mentioning

9/10

IGN posted a very interesting article today regarding the possible release of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the XBox360. Quoted from Konami PR representative “We’re actively looking into a release for the Xbox 360.”. While I am not a fanboy for neither consoles, even if XBox360 supports Blu-Ray drive, therefore eliminating the need to swapping discs during different acts. How does Konami plan on removing all the PlayStation 3 and PSP references in the game? Are they going to keep them there which is rather a conflict of interest or replace with some other Microsoft devices? As far as I know microsoft doesn’t have a handheld to replace a PSP.

As you can see from the images below, Snake is controlling the MKII using a Playstation controller. And Sunny is holding a PSP while Hal “Otacon” Emmerich is talking about the PlayStation 3!

Only time will tell if the rumor is true or not.

thatvideogameblog

scrawlfx

pspsps

Capcom has released two lengthy (8+ minutes) trailers for Resident Evil 5. These two trailers are all about the co-op side of the game. While the commentators were a bit annoying because they were talking the entire time in JAPANESE which obviously I do not understand, the co-op game play as well as the graphics certainly look promising.

Resident Evil 5 is somewhat different from the previous series because I feel that the “horror” piece is missing now. Based on the trailers so far, it has become a survival third person shooter as oppose to survival horror third person shooter. There are also more ammo and healing items that can be picked up also probably because there are a lot more zombies, smarter ones that is, to kill. I hope there aren’t too many items for players to pick up otherwise the survival piece will be gone as well because you can just spray your ammo without worrying about how much you have.

Although I really wish the horror piece would remain (maybe its still there but not from the trailers), but the co-op feature is just too much for me to miss this game. If I decided not to get Call of Duty 5, RE5 will probably be my first co-op survival (horror?) third person shooter game.

And…I wish I was there at the Tokyo Game Show. -_-”

Trailers from: Gametrailers.com

Dead Space is out in less than a week, we are presented with yet another impressive animated comic movie trailer from Gametrailers.com. This month is going to be one busy AND expensive month for me with all these great games coming out.

First impression the sci-fi third person shooter Fracture gives me is that it is very Mass Effect-ish. The first half of the demo allows you to get used to the controls, the environment and lets you test out the different weapons of the game.

The controls are pretty somewhat straight forward but slightly different. R1, R2, L1, L2 are all for weapons. Triangle button is for sprinting which shows a very nice blur effect to simulate running. As usual, the square is for reload and cross is jump. L3 is crouch and R3 is zoom. I was expecting some close range one hit kill like the knife in Call of Duty but there isn’t any, at least in the demo.

 

The environment looks amazing with detailed textures. As the first half of the demo, you get to try out the weapons. Two features that are pretty important in this game and are actually very innovative – raise and lower terrains with your weapon and two types of grenades. You will know where to raise or lower the terrains by looking for the corresponding symbol around the area you need to manipulate. Unfortunately there’s a limit to how high or how low you can manipulate. The effects of terrain manipulation are impressive, even more so if you use grenades to do the job! Aside from moving from place to place, raising or lowering terrains also help you during battles. For example, if you lower an area, you have yourself a trench and if you raise an area, you will have yourself a shield for a while from all the gun fire.

 

The standard rifle that starts you off in the demo is pretty “standard” and doesn’t give a powerful impression. The Black Widow on the other hand, can enable you to shoot up to 6 grenades that you can detonate all at once. Then there is the pulse sniper rifle which is pretty common (Unreal Tournament comes to mind).

 

There aren’t too many sci fi third person shooters in the next gen consoles yet, well at least not for PlayStation 3 unlike XBox 360 which has Gears of War 1 (2 coming out soon) and Mass Effect to name a few. I’m not sure if its worth buying, more of rental to me. I rather wait for Dead Space even though it doesn’t have online mode. But then again, if you have a PS3, do give the demo a try, maybe you might just like it! Just not quite my cup of tea.

 

Score: 7/10
Release date: Oct 7 2008