Archive for February 27th, 2008
February 27, 2008
Kratos gets the Vader treatment.
As the blood-splattered Spartan soldier turned God of War, Kratos is prone to seeing red, both figuratively and literally. To promote the upcoming release of God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PlayStation Portable, Sony is giving handheld gamers the chance to see red not just in the game, but all over their systems.
Starting in June, Sony will begin selling a new PlayStation Portable bundle that includes the system in a “deep red” color with an image of Kratos silk-screened on the back, a copy of Chains of Olympus, the raunchy comedy Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops onto a memory stick for the system.
It’s a PSP, but red.
Chains of Olympus is set for a stand-alone release March 4, but gamers with the patience of the gods will need to hold out for the release of the newly colored God of War PSP Entertainment Pack until June. The bundle will retail for $199.99.
February 27, 2008
Jason Bourne is elusive, just ask the CIA, but we recently caught up with him at High Moon Studios in a playable build of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy. Though he looked a little different (the game won’t use Matt Damon’s likeness), there was no mistaking his lightning-fast moves, lethal resourcefulness, or highly cinematic camera cuts. The Bourne Conspiracy looks just like a Bourne movie, making it as fun to watch as it is to play.
And, if you think about it, that is quite an accomplishment. After all, the Bourne movies aren’t just action movies, they’re some of the best action movies ever made. They draw from Robert Ludlum’s excellent books and Tony Gilroy’s script-writing expertise. They also draw from the directorial talents of Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass. To make a Bourne game that does justice to the film, High Moon Studios has been working with Tony Gilroy to pen a bona fide Bourne plot, as well as Jeff Imada, who choreographed all the fights in the Bourne films.
He may not look like Matt Damon’s character, but he sure does fight like him.
One of the biggest challenges, though, has been figuring out how to emulate the snappy visual style of the movies. According to Emmanuel Valdez, the director of The Bourne Conspiracy, it’s not all quick camera cuts. For instance, his team discovered that the punches and kicks in the films seem so scary-fast because the film’s editors were actually stripping frames out of the animation sequences. High Moon Studios has emulated this technique, and as a result, their strikes are just supernaturally quick.
Speaking of fisticuffs, the combat in The Bourne Conspiracy will attempt to make you feel like a born killer without putting you through hours of tutorials. There are two attack buttons (light and heavy), a block button, and a takedown button. The basic premise is this: By hitting an enemy, you fill an adrenaline meter. When the meter is full, you can execute a cinematic and ultraviolent takedown with the push of a button.
Some takedowns are simple martial arts affairs: a chop to the neck, kick to the right testicle, punch in the nose, kick to the left testicle, and then a leg sweep. Many, however, employ props. You might plant an enemy in a concrete pot, wipe off a whiteboard with his face, or turn off the TV with his head and shoulders. If the enemy has a weapon, you’ll take it away and teach him a couple of painful lessons in its use. If there are multiple enemies, you can take them all down, provided you have enough levels of adrenaline.
If you’re in a hurry, you can even down a foe on the go. We saw one hilarious instance of this in the game’s re-creation of the embassy scene from The Bourne Identity. You’re sprinting down a hallway, trying to elude security as a man in a business suit watches you approach. The fellow, who looks like a banker, apparently makes up his mind to take a swing. Big mistake, buddy. You hit the takedown button without breaking your pace, duck his blow, and plant a running right haymaker in his crotch without wasting a step. It’s a very satisfying moment from a gameplay perspective, and it looks hilarious.
The only characters you can’t finish off with a single takedown are bosses. But by the time you’re through with them, they’ll wish they hadn’t gotten up the first time you slammed their heads in a door, much less the fifth time. But then again, they give as good as they get, so if you aren’t careful, a boss will do a takedown on you. The bosses on display at the event were normal-looking fellows, which made the horrific amounts of violence inflicted on their mortal-looking bodies all the more impressive.
The CIA denies any knowledge of this technique or its use in The Bourne Conspiracy.
Of course, you don’t just wander through all the episodes from Bourne’s life punching people out and kicking them down stairwells–you shoot quite a few of them too! If you draw a gun, the camera moves to an over-the-shoulder perspective, with most of the normal trappings of a third-person shooter. Unique to Bourne is a vision mode you can enter to instantly take stock of where the enemies are and which objects might explode. If you imagine the way Bourne immediately sizes up situations in the films, this vision mode makes a lot of sense.
And what would a Bourne game be without car chases? You can stop wondering, because The Bourne Supremacy will definitely have them. In the sequence we saw, Bourne was trying to elude the cops in picturesque Paris. The driving mechanics looked pretty normal, though shortcuts and detours were literally highlighted by stray rays breaking through the overcast day. Also entertaining were the squeals of your passenger every time you pulled off a slick turn or rammed another car.
As you can see, there was plenty on display at High Moon Studios, but there is still much to learn about this mysterious, as well as good-looking, game of action and mystery. We’ll keep you up to date with a full dossier, but in the meantime, look forward to being Bourne sometime this summer.
-If Its Games
February 27, 2008
Donning his Superman cape earlier this month, Orlando Magic superstar and NBA Ballers: Chosen One cover athlete Dwight Howard captured league bragging rights as the winner of the NBA’s 2008 Slam Dunk Contest. Undoubtedly hoping to attain similar acclaim for its latest arcade-style basketball game, Midway has announced that Chosen One will arrive for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on April 21.
As with previous installments in Midway’s Ballers series, Chosen One lets gamers live the life of an aspiring NBA star as they seek to gain status in one-on-one and two-on-two games of street ball. The likenesses of more than 65 NBA stars are slated to appear in the game, and Midway has implemented a variety of new features, including a new globe-trotting Chosen One Tournament mode, the ability to learn NBA stars’ signature moves, and new camera angles that highlight the cinematically stylized sequences in the game.
For more on NBA Ballers: Chosen One, check out If Its Games’s previous coverage.
February 27, 2008
Dark Tidings
Check out some new Dark Sector multiplayer footage here.
Watch | Download
D3 and developer Digital Extremes have been showing off more and more of the single-player campaign in Dark Sector–their upcoming horror-tinged third-person action game–as the release date draws near for this long-in-development title. Until recently, though, we didn’t know if the game would offer up any sort of online multiplayer to complement the main story-driven mode. Luckily, the game will have two multiplayer modes to keep you busy, and considering Dark Sector’s mechanical similarities to Gears of War, it was a wise decision for Digital Extremes to include some online action here.
The first mode is called infection, in which one player is randomly selected at the beginning of a match to play as Hayden Tenno, the mutant, superpowered secret agent you’ll control in the main game. All of the other players will control regular human soldiers armed with assault rifles or shotguns, and the objective (and the way to score points) is to kill the guy who’s playing Hayden. As soon as you kill him, you become him. Hayden in the multiplayer is armed with all of the powers you’ll gain in the campaign, such as a reflective bullet shield, limited invisibility, and some brutal instant-kill melee attacks. However, the soldiers do have one new trick: a proximity mine they can drop that will blow up in Hayden’s face if he gets too close. These matches last until time runs out, and the player with the most points wins at the end.
Epidemic is the other mode, and it plays on a rounds-per-match basis sort of like Counter-Strike. Here, there are two teams, each with one Hayden (though one of them looks like a generic mutant with a covered face), and each of the two Haydens is supported by a team of regular soldiers. The whole objective here is to kill the other team’s Hayden, after which the round ends and your team scores a point. The team with the most points at the end of the entire match wins. Again, both Haydens will be able to go invisible for a few seconds, reflect enemies’ shots back at them, and other devilish tricks. We found during our demo that a skilled Hayden player could handily hold his or her own against multiple soldiers at a time.
When will the Hayden-on-Hayden violence end?
Dark Sector will ship with five maps in the box, and while they’re specially designed for multiplayer rather than coming from the campaign, naturally they’re thematically similar to what you’ll see as you play through the storyline. There’s a map set in a gothic nighttime setting, another in an old run-down industrial warehouse, and so on. From what we saw, they all offer ways for Hayden to imbue his bladed glaive weapon with elemental powers such as ice or fire, the same way you can in the single-player game.
Dark Sector’s release date is now just about a month away, so we’ll soon be able to deliver a final verdict on Digital Extremes’ first release on modern consoles. Check back then.
-If Its Games
February 27, 2008
TechWeb - Microsoft said it will discontinue selling an external Xbox 360 drive that supports the HD DVD high-definition movie format.
February 27, 2008
Reuters - An independent movie producer with rights to the horror movie “George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead” sued video game maker Capcom Co Ltd on Monday in the latest salvo in a copyright dispute.
February 27, 2008
Macworld.com - Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) on Tuesday announced plans to release its DualShock 3 wireless controller for its PlayStation 3 video game console in April. The new controller will cost $54.95.
February 27, 2008
The latest weekly game sales figures are in from the UK, and Mario & Sonic are keeping up their impressive run as they remain at the number one spot. Call of Duty 4 sneaks up behind while DMC 4 slips down a place to number 3. Enjoy a look at the top ten below.
February 27, 2008
Nintendo has issued a small firmware update for the Wii, they note that it has no visible difference but tweaks a few things behind the scenes in order to improve overall system performance. Early reports indicate that the Twilight Princess exploit still works although it is not known if this update does anything to mod chips.
February 27, 2008
The original GC Linux team has been relatively quiet over the last two years but yesterday they announced that they have finally managed to run Linux NATIVELY on the Wii through the use of the Twilight Hack and have released a small proof of concept. Continue discussion on the matter here.
February 27, 2008
According to a French Website, Sega have said that if \’The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return\’ for Wii sells well around the world, then they may bring \’The House of the Dead 4\’ to the Wii. The House of the Dead 4 is due for release on the Xbox 360 sometime this year in the US and \’The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return\’ on March 11 this year.
February 27, 2008
A new product called the Wii Clip aims to make modding Wii-D2A and D2C consoles something of a 2 minute plug and play job. The Clip has one major advantage of not ruining the motherboard but there is still some handy work required and there is absolutely no guarantee of how effective this method is or will be.
February 27, 2008
Nintendo of Europe has confirmed text chat for Mario Kart Wii. \”You can create rooms for friends to join and even text chat while you’re waiting for other racers. The online function of Mario Kart Wii also lets you join a friend’s race in action and be a spectator until the next course launches.\”
February 27, 2008
During an article, Bruce Everiss of SeekingAlpha states \”The new DS Ultralite model due this year will not fix this problem.\” Prior to that, he states the DS is becoming a broken business model as pirate cartridges result in them losing customers far quicker than they are gaining them through selling new machines.
February 27, 2008
Following a report by SeekingAlpha which mentioned that a new \’UltraLite\’ DS model was to be released this year later on, we seeked comment from Nintendo on the matter. Robert Saunders of Nintendo told us that \”It is absolute rumour and pure speculation on his part, nothing has been announced and there are currently no plans to introduce a new DS model.\”
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