“Sorry guys, come version 1.2 and I’ll be kicking some ass”
There were always going to be a view weird glitches and errors following the massive launch and sheer amount of players on Modern Warfare 2 and despite there being one patch already by InfinityWard to tidy up, mostly PS3 based, matchmaking and connection issues, the magical world of twitter confirms that another update is on the way.
When questioned by ‘Twitterer’ IRISnGEN, the man in the know, Robert Bowling (FourTwoZero to this friends) said:
@IRISnGEN at the moment were on Holiday (Thanksgiving) but playing and tracking feedback for the first major title update.
Now I’ve noticed a few software based issues regarding slow down, freezing and other general weirdness whilst in the lobby though it appears to not be a major issue in gameplay, apart from the fact I suck at it. Maybe this title update will fix that. No news yet on when we’re getting DLC for MW2, but you can gurantee, the money men will be pushing anything MW2 related hard in the next few months.
His usual calm and thoughtful self, Kratos just can’t understand why everyone is so angry
Recently, I got the chance to play a demo of God of War III which has being floating around the gaming world for a while, since about E3. So whilst most of the press have had a chance to play the third instalment in this greek mythology influenced hack ‘n slash, most of us mere plebs had not.
Following in the line of inFamous and a few other games recently, pressing start instantly sends you into the action, as Kratos, who is still pretty pissed off at quite a few things that is happening, gets set up upon by skeletons, who happen to be armed with swords and shields, typical on your Greek holiday resort. Kratos controls still how you’d expect him to, with light and heavy attacks, grabs and variations on these, depending on you combo them together or use the block button to access different types of the attacks. I always found myself playing the original God of War a bit button mashy and although a little more timing and finesse is required against these, what I presume to be, bog standard ‘easy’ foes, I was able to get back into the combat pretty quickly, though it may be a case when the game is released in March next year of people who are used to the series breezing through it on lower difficulties.
In the preview, Kratos battles his way through Mount Olympus, fighting God’s and all kinds of creatures, including Helios, a centaur, a lot of saggy Harpy’s and various other monsters you’ll all faintly remember from any time spent in the Greek Mythos. The world does look authentically ancient, although you are limited to what you can see thanks to the camera tending to favour looking in one direction, basically so you can see the combat. One of the later scenes in the demo, which I don’t want to spoil for anyone eagerly anticipating their “Remastered Pack” demo to come through, does live up to the much of the ‘epicness’ that has been shown in most of the trailers, whether this continues in the rest of the game remains to be seen.
However, GOW III is most certainly filled with lots of events. Events from shooting down God from his flaming chariot, angering a large rock thing (most probably another God) who is climbing the mountain, jumping from Harpy to ugly Harpy by stabbing it in the neck, riding on top of a strong, if not A grade candidate Cyclops and various other things that makes Uncharted 2 look like a donkey ride on a beach. By utilising the extra horsepower that has been given to them, Santa Monica Studios have, so far anyway, brought in so many different elements of Greek Mythos, putting them in a gorey mixing pot and seeing what they can craft from this. Whilst I’m in no doubt that this preview was crafted in such a way to give me plenty of “ooohh” and “ahhhh” moments, there is nothing really wrong with that, if the game can continue a similar level of excitement through the story.
As I mentioned, you are pretty good as killing things as Kratos and the combat techniques flow nicely into one another, creating combat that doesn’t even feel like it’s out of your control. The game attempts to promote, through the combat a system, a more pragmatic approach to the combat, allowing to change from a grab, to a heavy attack, followed by a light, jump attack. This works on in theory, I’m sure you could craft really intricate and useful combos out of this, preventing you from getting hit, but there is little to zero penalty to simply spamming a favoured attack (mine was L1 and Square) which pretty much clears the floor with most of what you encounter in the preview. Whilst some of the bosses are a little more tricky, and some become a bit easier by switching to boxing-glove style weapons which basically act like wrecking balls on Kratos’ hands.
To keep this pretty brief and to the point, which is strange for me I know, God of War III looks set to be another big game of the PS3, although so far, the improvements on it’s predecessor seem mostly superficial and although you’ll definitely notice an upgrade, from what I’ve seen so far, if you ain’t into the mad amount of gore that is piled into this game and the general direction of the series, GOW III ain’t going to convince you. Unless you head happens to be easy to tear off. You never know
Whilst there is no confirmation of a ‘HAWX’ style mode yet, I’m sure it won’t be long
Once again, a shady French gamer has got hold of a game way before launch and in this pinnacle of filming expertise, shot some footage of the PS3 version of Modern Warfare 2, showing a ‘behind the back’ camera option in multi-player of MW2. So now join me as I attempt to link all this together.
First of all, here is the footage coutersy of Destructoid:
“It’s just another cool way to play the game, you’ll still have the option to play the other game types as normal”
Now that’s cleared up, Destructoid translated the game modes as being: “Third Person Deathmatch” (straightforward enough) and “Cage Match Third Person”. And that is pretty much it, apart from more thing. According to the aforementioned “FourTwoZero’s” twitter status, if you don’t want Modern Warfare 2 spoiling, vanish of the face of the earth, or alternatively, don’t pay attention to the video gaming news community. Problem being, is that I don’t really want it spoiling, nor can I stop checking the news. Oh crap.
MS Surface is in essence, a giant Iphone you put things on, but they won’t want you to call it that
I’ve been excited about Microsoft Surface on a geeky level for quite a while, the early shots of it automatically grabbing photos from your phone, recognising when a glass it placed on the table, all that kind of stuff really made “The Gadget Show” watcher in me want to own it. Well, the folks at Surfacescapes team at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University (cheers 1UP) have now given me a new reason to really want to convert all my tables to windows…wait a sec…
Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.
They’ve built Dungeons and Dragons, the table top game, to work with MS Surface. Of course, the words “Proof of Concept” come into play, and however in-depth it looks, its not the finished thing.
SurfaceScapes will provide Game Masters and players with a set of features to enhance the combat and role-playing aspects of tabletop games. This will include the ability to interact with the digital environment using real objects such as miniatures and provide automated calculations and visual and audio feedback for actions performed by the player and non-player characters.
Whilst that is a lot of game developer and Dungeons and Dragons stuff which whilst sounds great in theory, I wonder if in the future, we’ll get a load of iPhone esque ‘apps’ that whilst are cheap, ain’t exactly that cheerful. But I’m an optimist when it comes to these things, so lets hope that they take the pretty awesome platform and run with it
Much of the original assets have been remastered, though can’t they just slip this part in…God of War III? Oh OK then.
Playstation blog have posted a first trailer of the God of War Collection. The collection, which has both God of War I and II, with 720p remastered graphics, is due for release before the end of this year. They are going to be bringing trophy support and all other goodies, such as exclusive access to the God of War III demo early to the game.
Check out the video below (HD for well, HD quality) and see if these last gen games stand up to their modern competition.
GAME: God of War
Developer
Santa Monica Studios
Publishers
Sony Entertainment
Platforms
PS2
Genre
Action/Adventure
Multiplayer Options
No Multiplayer
Release Date (UK)
March 22, 2005
Looks likes the times are finally changing with regards to digital distrubution, which is great, as after my shopping experience yesterday to pick up Uncharted 2 (not regretting it mind), going to real life shops suck. With the launch of the PSP Go! and a whole slew of games only available to download and Steam continuing on it’s relentless march against boxed retail, it looks like, whether you are into it or not, the days of hard media (and not the type you get off the top shelf, quiet you) is very much numbered.
By that I mean Konami have stopped releasing PC ports of their titles, be that Silent Hill or their latest ‘scare ‘em up’ Saw, on retail disc, instead just using Steam exclusively. This makes sense, in my opinion, for most PC ports of games, as to be honest, if someone doesn’t have a PS3 or 360 and is wanting to play , I’m pretty sure they will just add “torrent” to the title and enjoy the multitude of bare chested women and a download link. Through non-scientific research, I’ve concluded that if a game is availible on Steam at a reasonable price, people will actually consider paying for it, rather than “stealing it” so for Konami and a pretty middle of the range game like Saw, this makes perfect sense.
And never. Ever. EVER. Let me write ‘Scare ‘em up’ again. It’s been a long day.
Infintity Ward have released a new trailer for Modern Warfare 2, mixing cutscene and gamplay footage. This is purely focused on the single player campaign and shows a few different environments, including a very Fallout 3 style Washington DC. At the moment, it kind of looks like the story has gone a bit, Tom Clancy, with a good dose of 24, even so, Infinity Ward are really building up hype to MW2.
In this weeks edition of Game Engine’s Ignition Podcast, we have a chat about oh so many games, the health benefits of modern consoles, whether a Spore movie is a good idea and in fact, what would be a good video game movie? All this and more in the Ignition Podcast!
Duration: 1:26:00
I admit, I’m kind of excited about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I’ve shied away from reading any reviews, as I’m hoping to review it myself when it finally comes out on the 16th October, but until that time, there has been mutterings and rumours that we may be going to get a chance to play the mulitplayer section of the game as part of a demo.
Well, funny that, because I just got word that there is going to be a Multiplayer demo, featuring a whole host of features. Oh, you want to know what they are? Well, it’s going to be around 1.3 Gigabytes of convenient game, and in that your going to get four multiplayer maps, four competitve modes and two co-operative modes. As well as getting access to the Cinema, Machima and Stage modes, which allow you to create your own Uncharted 2 movies, which fits in quite well with the style of the game.
However, we’re in Europe, so the big question is, will we get it. And Sony’s answer is, possibly, no gurantees of this Thursday, but maybe next week, as is usually the case with content making the Atlantic jump. In the mean time, if your interested in Uncharted 2, why not work on the Game Page.
UPDATE: According to sources, the demo is live on EU as well as US servers as well.
GAME: Uncharted 2: Among thieves
Developer
Naughty Dog
Publishers
Sony Entertainment
Platforms
PS3
Genre
Action/Adventure • Third Person Shooter
Multiplayer Options
Online • Co-Op
Release Date (UK)
October 16, 2009
In this weeks catch up edition of Game Engine’s Ignition Podcast, Matt, Josh and Stevie discuss the relevant merits of football games, the relevant merits of Valve games and the relevant merits of driving games. Oh, and we also talk about a little thing called the Tokyo Game Show. All these merits and more on the Ignition podcast!
Duration: 2:02:00
