I will admit right here right now, I have not played any Final Fantasy games. They past me by all those years ago. Shameful? Maybe. That does not stop me sharing awesome videos with you, The real Final Fantasy fans. So enjoy your brand new Final Fantasy XIII-2 gameplay video.
CVG released this rather interesting article today on whether FIFA 12 were keeping there promise on a revolution rather than evolution in this years iteration. Check it out.
"Revolution not evolution' promises FIFA 12's marketing blurb. Truth told, it's a misleading claim in the Bolshevik sense, but on the evidence of our extensive hands-on, it does succeed on a more literal level - since FIFA 12's key feature is the ability to turn rapidly in a tight circle.
It sounds daft, but Precision Dribbling - the ability for skilled players to turn sharper and quicker, using only subtle left stick prompts - is arguably the biggest leap in the series' recent history. Using technical players like Nasri or Arshavin, it's now possible to 'sell' a defender using sharp-angled turns or 180 direction shifts, using their body weight or momentum against them.
Best of all, it's completely intuitive, unlike the slightly forced 'skill dribble' of old, where you held both shoulder buttons for closer control. Strong, gifted players like Berbatov can 'hold up' a ball in packed midfields using subtle stick shifts, keeping defender pressure at bay with delicate ball touches. The result is that it's much easier to play through the middle, using technique players such as Fabregas to buy space in crowded midfields. Playmakers like Xavi will be able to spot longer ranged passes using an extended cone of vision. In theory, this 'Pro Player Intelligence' allows the PS3- controlled team to attack you more realistically, hitting long balls to big men like Crouch and dribbling more with skilful players like Messi - but this'll need more time for us to test.
The dribbling forms part of an interlinked 'trinity' of changes, including Tactical Defending. You no longer hold X to cheesily pressure-tackle a player, but to 'contain' them: using the left stick to move closer or further away before tapping square (on alternate controls) at the right moment for a tackle. Mistime it, and you'll be off balance, allowing the attacker to burst past.
Mistimed tackles are amplified by the Player Impact Engine, with collision animations and injuries calculated in real-time. In Manager Mode, your handling of an injury will become a key part of the season's 'story' - rush a player back and he risks a relapse.
Overall, it's a subtle but powerful combination - dribbling finally feels intuitive and player-specific, as it did in the vintage, PS2-era PES, and the tackling will quell maddening online 'pressure abusers.' Revolution is perhaps too bold a claim, but it does ask stern questions of Konami's more evolutionary football rival"
The culling continues today. In the wake of layoffs at Red Fly Studios as well as the complete closure of Disney’s Blackrock Studio, we’ve now learned that Blue Fang Games has been hit with layoffs.The CEO of the company, Hank Howie, said about ten people were let go, comprising about 1/3 of the staff of the company.However, an inside source spoke to Gamasutra saying the layoffs were closer to 25 people, and comprised the company’s entire development team.The creators of the Zoo Tycoon franchise have announced today that they’ve been hit with layoffs, and inside sources claim the layoffs are even worse.
Minecraft has passed the milestone of ten million registered users. Posting on Twitter, creator Markus Persson confirmed that the world creation sim recently surpassed the landmark figure.
"Minecraft just passed ten million registered users," he tweeted. As users do not need to register to try out the 'Creative' version of Minecraft, the total number of users who have played the game is thought to be significantly higher. Earlier this year, it was reported that Minecraft has generated profits of more than £20mdespite still being in beta. The title picked up numerous awards at year's Independant Games Festival and the 11th Game Developer Choice Awards.
The full version of Minecraft will be available from November 11.
I'm not saying I have a new favourite Mortal Kombat character or anything, but when you introduce a telekinesis, sword wielding, blind to me, then your kind of forcing me to add him to the top of my list. Mortal Kombat are no strangers to introducing new characters to there new game. Although Kenshi seems to have fans drooling at the prospect of throwing your opponent against the camera again and againand againand again and again....
Remember what trees and grass used to look like in games? Yeah, well that ain't acceptable any more. Epic's PR Manager Dana Cowley tweeted this pretty amazing image to his tweet fans to show just how good the gardening will be in Epic's new Unreal Engine 3. Apparantley what you see will be totally in-game footage, Although that will be hard to believe until any real footage is shown in motion. Pretty impressive no?
Meanwhile, Australia waits in the corner, twiddling its thumbs.
It’s a feature that we’re scorning Nintendo for holding back since the eShop was launched early last month, but anyway, our European friends can now access 3D trailers of upcoming 3DS games. The trailers are the ones that were showcased at E3 and they’re being released in two batches over the next few weeks.
The first trailers up from today are for Mario Kart, Resident Evil: Revelations, Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario (working title) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. These five will be available until July 20. The second batch, out next week, will contain Animal Crossing, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Metal Gear Solid 3D Snake Eater and Paper Mario trailers and, like the first offerings, will only be around for a limited time.
To access the trailers, you will need to first perform a system update and away you go. Now that Nintendo has finally gotten the ball rolling in the PAL region, we hope to see the 3D goodness arrive on the Australian eShop very soon. How about this week, Nintendo?
Don't you just love getting something extra for free? A little bonus. Say when you order a 6 piece chicken nugget meal from Macdonald's, to find there are actually 7 chicken nuggets inside! Its not a lot but a little bonus, Its nice and fulfils the little part of the brain which wasn't expecting it. Although when it comes to Pre order bonuses, That's another matter. As much as I disagree with these PO bonuses, FIFA 12/ GAME offer seems to be a pretty nice little touch to anyone wanting to jump on board the Fifa ship early. If you ore-order with GAME, you'll get 24 FIFA 12 Ultimate Team gold packs (four a month over the course of six months). Pre-orders from other retailers will net you a reduced 18 gold packs (three a month over six months). Not a bad little offer ay?
Ultimate Team will be released in September as a separate download. FIFA 12 launches in North America on September 27. The rest of the world has to wait a few extra days until September 30.
Oh I love Andy Gray for all the wrong reason. In a way I miss his beautiful bullshit commentary every weekend with Richard Keys kissing his ass. Which is exactly why this is my video of the week.
With Gamescom just around the corner, Konami have announced some details of what you can expect to be shown this year. Leading the charge this year will as always be Pro Evolution Soccer 2012, which has been getting some fantastic praise from critics so it makes sense for them to show off there legendary franchise.
Also on display and playable on the floor will be survival horror favourite Silent Hill along with Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D.
Its a strong start for Konami who always favour Gamescom to the most respected E3 and you can be sure that more announcements will follow shortly.
Minecraft 1.7 update has now been released by Mojang, although many fans may be left slightly disappointed as it’s unfortunately not the ‘Adventure Update’ that they were expecting. According to a recent article by John Jacques over on the gamerant.com website, the adventure update – which would ‘flesh out the game a bit’ – will be the 1.8 version instead
Version 1.7 only brings a small amount of changes compared to other Minecraft updates, with the new pistons probably being the most anticipated. The pistons will enable players to utilize the power of movement to shove up to 12 blocks, depending on the blocks’ position compared to the piston block. Gamers can also use the pistons as a floodgate, pushing lava or water in order to create a flow of liquid.
Plus a whole bunch of other stuff which the pistons can be used for, The trailer will reveal all.
Did you want more Bioshock Infinate footage? Strangling your newborn puppy out of excitment? Well put the puppy down and relax! Ken Levine has your back. This is the first two minutes of the demo that was shown behind closed doors at E3, Enjoy!
Think you will be buying Modern Warfare 3 and keep the same online strategy you've been using for the last four iterations of Call Of Duty? Think again. MW3 will be getting a complete re-vamp of there killstreak system according to Creative Strategist Robert Bowling:
"We changed the entire way the killstreak system works. I can't go into detail yet, but I will share when I can"
Thousands of COD fan boys will now be hitting F5 constantly on Bowling Twitter to see just what Infinity Ward have in store for there next blockbuster.
What else would you like changed in Modern Warfare 3's Multiplayer?
When Dead Island was announced, I doubt anyone really cared that much at all. Another Zombie game? Well we got Left for Dead, Call Of Duty: Zombies and so on. Then came the now infamous trailer. Zooming out from the eye of a dead Zombie girl? Can't go wrong with that.
A hands on article of Dead Island's Multiplayer was released earlier from the boys over at The Sixth Axis giving the views on what to expect. Its a great read and sounds promising, so check it out.
All eyes have been on Dead Island ever since that one trailer was released. Could the game actually be that good? Based on the various screenshots I’ve seen, I was beginning to worry. To me, it seemed like it was being over hyped. After all, we were getting excited over a CG trailer with no gameplay footage whatsoever. Having played the multiplayer component for decent amount of time, I can easily say that many of my concerns have been put to rest. There’s just so much fun to be had.
The demo started off inside of a church. This is where you can accept quests, buy weapons, and make upgrades or repairs. We were given a ridiculous amount of money to buy whatever we desired. I purchased and upgraded several types of blades, a mace, a rifle, and even coated one weapon in fire. You can carry pretty much anything you buy, but you can only equip 9 items to your weapon wheel at a time.
Once a quest has been activated, a clear path to your destination is shown on your mini-map. We all left the church cautiously, not knowing what to expect. The first thing you’ll notice is that the environment is completely open to the player. You can go pretty much anywhere you want. And that’s exactly what I did.
The church serves as the central hub. Very little praying will be done.
I mindlessly ran around because I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know what the quest was. I kept trying to punch and kick random NPCs, but to no avail. They can’t be harmed. Apparently, we were putting up a bunch of posters for a missing person. The idea doesn’t really make any sense. Everyone is either dead, a zombie, or at the church. I highly doubt that any survivor would stop and look at one of the posters. Regardless of the mission, I just wanted to kill as many zombies as possible.
Not seeing the point of having a bunch of knives as a weapon, I opted to use my rifle first. I learned the hard way that guns need to be used sparingly. You won’t find ammo just laying on the ground, and it certainly won’t materialize after killing an enemy. There’s a bit of a survival horror element to weapon usage, so you actually need to think about what you’re doing at all times.
The enemies themselves are quite ferocious. As fun as it is to kill them, you actually need to put some effort into each enemy you take down. The combat is surprisingly more melee intensive than anything else. If you want to take down the undead, you need to go up to them and punch them in the face. Having three teammates certainly helped with that task. We fended off as many zombies as possible, all while our guide gave us insights to the gameplay.
There are four different characters in the game. Each of which have their own attributes and special abilities. Sam is the Tank class and is good with heavy weapons. Xian Mei is the Assassin and specializes with blades, Logan is the well rounded “jack of all trades”, and Purna is the Leader. I used Logan during the demo. His unique ability is being able to throw a barrage of knives at anything standing in his way. This required use of the Rage meter.
Building up your rage is as simple as killing zombies. You’ll also gain experience points in the process. That XP can then be used to upgrade your character’s skill tree. Even if your teammates were all the same character, they could be leveled up differently, ultimately making them more or less effective in various ways. For the purposes of the demo we were already leveled up quite a bit.
Whether you’re cutting a zombies arm off or chopping off their head, you’re going to have a lot of fun torturing enemies. There were many moments were we just beat on a zombie that was long dead. The most brutal attack was definitely the curb stomp. Despite the horrific setting and circumstances, the game was just hilarious to play. Coming up with different ways to incapacitate your enemies is disturbing, yet very satisfying. And it’s always fun blowing up your teammates by shooting gas tanks. It’s possible to revive fallen friends, but it’s not exactly a good idea to just waste all of your health items unless you need to. If you aren’t healed in time you can respawn nearby but you’ll also lose some XP in the process.
There was a nice variety of enemies always in our way. Some zombies were on fire, some were covered in poison mist, while others served as mini-bosses. One in particular, appropriately named The Ram, was wearing a straight jacket and would charge at us with full force. He has quite a bit of health, but he’s relatively easy to deal with. You just need to side step at the right moment to avoid getting hit. Even the common zombies were no joke. Unlike Resident Evil 5, they don’t just stand there waiting for you to attack them. They will run and you and eat your face at every chance they get. You’re not always alone either. Sometimes you’ll see random survivors out in the streets fighting for their lives.
As all of this is going on, you need to keep track of your various meters. In addition to your health bar, you have to pay attention to your stamina. If you swing your weapon too frequently, your stamina will decrease and your attacks will become less effective. There’s also a meter attached to the weapons themselves. If it depletes, the weapon becomes less effective. You either need to repair it or toss it away. I opted to throw many of my knives at unsuspecting zombies. What’s neat is that you can actually recover them from their dead bodies.
Situations like this happen quite often.
The environment was relatively expansive. Even though this was only one small portion of the game, but there were so many paths one could take. You could even drop down to the sewers if you wanted. If the main quest isn’t enough for you, there’s also a bunch of sidequests to go on. There’s also tons of precious loot to be found, which can then be used to modify weapons. For a game like this, there’s a surprising amount of freedom given to the player.
Perhaps the best part about the multiplayer mode is just how seamless it is. You can easily drop in and out of games whenever you want. Unlike some co-op based games, Dead Island’s entire campaign mode is at your disposal and anything you earned offline or online will carry on to both modes.
Even if you’re not into first person shooters, you’ll definitely want to keep Dead Island on your radar. Imagine a zombie game with elements from Borderlands, Dead Rising, and Left 4 Dead. It certainly has the potential to be a great game. We’ll see how it goes once it hits store shelves in September.
Will PES 2012 beat FIFA 12 this year? No, Probably not. With Fifa 11 shipping more than 820,000 in week one sales, To think that PES will out sell the giant this year is naive to say the least. Although are we looking at it all wrong? I mean do Konami want all of that fanbase? or just the hardcore. Well John Murphy UK PES Team Leader tells CVG what he thinks about this whole FIFA Vs PES debate and what chances PES has this year of attracting fans back to the former kings of virtual football.
Jon Murphy telling CVG:
"I really do believe that the offering we've got this year will pull some fans back from the competition. Perhaps we'll see another year when people buy both games, but after six months, we want to make sure they trade-in only one of them - and it's not ours.
"[FIFA] has the atmosphere, the crowds and certain licences we don't - and everybody knows they've got better commentary than us. I can't see that changing. And some of the stuff they're doing with the collisions looks great, depending how it works as you actually play.
"But if you want pure gameplay, I think we'll smash them this year. We've got so many things going for us, but just the lightness of touch and the way the players move independently is fantastic. You notice it instantly."
Murphy added: "We don't want everyone, it's not about that - we want the front runners, the opinion formers, the players who tell their friends 'you've got to check out PES this year'. We want to bring them back, and I think we can."
“Alan will bring a fresh, new perspective and insight to FIFA 12, working alongside the trusted and well-known voice of Martin Tyler,” said FIFA 12’s senior producer David Rutter. Or Alan Smith isn't a sexist bastard who is just an out n out prick. Okay maybe that's just my opinion, but its a valid opinion. Andy Gray has been sacked from Fifa 12 along with every other job he has annoyed people at for the last few years. Alan Smith will be the new voice who'll join Martin Tyler to head the commentary of Fifa 12.
Not only will there be the sexual tension of Smith & Tyler this year, You will also be treated to the wonders of Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend (Replace a twat with a twat) Featuring over 10,000 lines of dialogue, you will never be without a moment of silence in Fifa 12.
"Yeah I know. Can you believe that? A female Linesman. That's exactly what I was saying, Women don't know the offside rule"
As if there were enough problems between EA and Activision, news has come out that at least 40 Infinity Ward employees have defected from the grip of Bobby Koticks hot fiery hands, To EA owned studio Respawn Entertainment to join up with former IW heads Vincent Zampella and Jason West.
Yes, most of the team that was responsible for arguably two of the biggest games ever to be released are now with Activisions arch rivals. EA have made it perfectly clear that they are gunning for the big dogs and this can only be good news for them, What an acquisition they have obtained. There is no news as to how Bobby Kotick has taken the news, but knowing Bobby, he is probably too busy playing poker with the devil and Hitler to care.
Minecraft is much different from your average game -- it's essentially a sandbox world where you can create anything you want, and there have been some amazing things created from Zelda adventure to a recreation of a Chrono Trigger area to A link to past worlds to Pokemon Kanto enormous holes to Earth... you get the idea. Its business model, too, is unusual; it was developed briefly and then released to the public long before it was finished. It began being sold while it was still in alpha and remains in beta as of today -- it won't be "officially" released until this November, more than two years after it first became available.
Developer Mojang's next game, Scrolls, differs from Minecraft both in theme (it's a card/board game hybrid) and in that it's being developed by five people, not almost entirely by one. The way it's rolled out to the public, however, will be very similar.
"With our new game, Scrolls, we'll follow the same formula as Minecraft," Mojang's Daniel Kaplan told Gamasutra at Gamelab 2011. "That means we'll release the game very early," as soon as it's playable in some capacity.
Like Minecraft, it'll be sold even in this very early stage of development. That's not something many other developers would be willing to do. It's unquestionably a model that has brought a great deal of success to Mojang -- more than 2.6 million people have bought Minecraft at one of its various price points (it was offered at a larger discount during alpha and remains 25% off the final price during the ongoing beta), and more than 8,000 purchases have been made in the past 24 hours alone.
Scrolls was announced earlier this year. Very little is known, and the only details and concept art comes from a brief description offered up on its official website. No release date has been announced.
A new promotional poster for Batman: Arkham City has hit the world wide web today, this time featuring none other then the Riddler.
We've already seen Robin, Catwoman, The Penguin and gruffle voiced Batman and much like those releases this one also features a black and white colour pop image.
The Riddler was revealed as a character back in March, we just hope we get the chance to play with his various psychedlic toys come the games release.
The church serves as the central hub. Very little praying will be done.
Situations like this happen quite often.
