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TGS 2009: Watch four minutes of Lost Planet 2
If there was ever any doubt in your mind that the enemies in upcoming third person planet finder shooter Lost Planet 2 are on the plus-size of things, the flood of assets coming out of the Tokyo Game Show should assure you of their huge-itude. Though we're only treated to a few scant glimpses in the trailer above, some of the beasts on display in the screens Capcom released are large-building-sized. The kind of big where you get that falling feeling in your stomach just from looking at them. Add to that the whole ongoing war thing and we're pretty glad to not be living on Capcom's now tropical planet.%Gallery-73847%
Video: New Assassin's Creed II gameplay walkthrough
Ubisoft has a released a video of new Assassin's Creed II gameplay. The video is essentially the same demonstration given at the Penny Arcade Expo, though a few things shown at the expo have been omitted. Specifically, the video doesn't show the ability to throw money on the ground [update: Yes it does.] -- which will cause peasants to scramble after it -- or the ability to blend in with any crowd -- not just groups of monks and citizens on benches. Still, the video shows off a great deal of the game's new features, including the wrist cannon, new side missions, improved Eagle Vision, the new economy system, indoor challenge areas and, our favorite, poison. Watch it. You know you want to.
Video: Joystiq @ The Omegathon for Halo 3: ODST
The PAX '09 Omegathon wraps up later today, but last night, we snagged some footage of the third round, which was dedicated to Nathan Fillion: The Game Halo 3: ODST. Three teams of four faced off in the new Firefight mode, with the top two teams advancing to the next round. This was the first time that anyone outside of Bungie has played the mode on Legendary difficulty, so there were some neat surprises, including Wraith tanks lobbing plasma at players and Covenant Engineers that bestow overshields to any nearby enemy, even Grunts. The players seated at the big screen also got to try out Sergeant Johnson, instilling them with extra courage and cigar-chomping bravado. Oh, and a Hunter got stuck in a wall during the third round. See it all in the video above.
The Warriors: Street Brawl pugilizes our eyes with new gang, 'The Lizzies'
When we heard about the upcoming Paramount game The Warriors: Street Brawl back in February, the company had only released gameplay of The Warriors themselves in action. The trailer you see above features another gang from the film -- The Lizzies -- who are apparently capable of at least one more special move (bringing the total up to two so far). Aside from re-confirming a Summer release window for the game on PSN/XBLA, the teaser only offers a teensy bit of gameplay. Though considering the fact that the Summer is nearly over, we're guessing it won't be long before The Warriors: Street Brawl all over your console's digital marketplace. Can you dig it?
"Why do we play MMOs" series concludes
When we last checked in with Tobold, he was just starting up a new blog series looking into why we play MMO games to a greater degree than single-player games. That isn't to say that the MMO genre is bigger than the single-player genre, just that MMO gamers tend to focus on massively multi-player games more than single-player games. His first two articles examined Storytelling and Gameplay elements in MMOs and since then he has done pieces on Challenge, Character Development, Rewards, Social Interactions, and Learning.The series just wrapped up and Tobold wrote a nice summary of why he thinks we mostly choose MMOs over single-player games. He feels that while we may play single-player games that have strong elements of story, gameplay, or challenge, the social aspects of MMOs seem to be the trump card. MMOs can have many weaker core elements but social interaction (direct) or simply participating in a persistent game world (indirect) appears to make up for those deficiencies. It's a long series to get through but well worth the read if you're into these kinds of high-thinking philosophical discussions.
Razer announces the Naga MMO mouse
BlizzCon isn't the only big gaming convention happening this week (though you'd never known it from reading our site -- we're a bit obsessive, no?). Gamescom is going on in Germany, and gaming equipment manufacturer Razer has announced there that they're releasing a new mouse, specifically designed for MMO games. They put it together in conjunction with MMO players (they say the folks at Curse had a hand in it), and while it isn't officially tied to Blizzard as far as we can tell (Steelseries already has that market cornered), there is one interesting connection. They decided to call this new mouse the "Naga."Technically the word is Sanskrit for "snake," and especially since most of Razer's mice are already named after scaly reptiles, we suppose it works. But given that the mouse is supposed to be designed for MMO gameplay (it has a twelve button thumb grid, supposedly to keep your hands off of spell buttons and on movement buttons where they belong), it's probably a happy coincidence that the name of the product is reminiscent of well-known villians in one very famous MMO. Good show, Razer.They also have a new "mousing surface" (back when I was a kid, we just called them mousepads) called the Megasoma. Both are available right now, and they ain't cheap: $80 for the mouse, and $50 for the pad. But if you want to go high-end on a mouse, and the Naga strikes your fancy, there you go.
Final Fantasy XIV makes its gameplay debut at GamesCom
If you, like us, have been curious about the differences between Square's first MMO, Final Fantasy XI, and Square's upcoming MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, then a gameplay demonstration from GamesCom 2009 will likely provide an answer: One of the games has a "V" on the end of its title, while the other doesn't.Okay, okay, there's a bit more to it than that. In the gameplay demo -- which was captured by GameVideos and posted after the jump -- we can see the biggest difference right away: The game's combat system has seen a major overhaul. Gone is the weird drop-down menu system, which looks to have been replaced by a much more streamlined hotbar, as seen in the whack-the-obese-chicken footage. Also, FFXIV looks absolutely stunning. That's not much a shocker, though, considering Squeenix's pedigree -- a history that includes beautiful-looking games and an inability to count sequentially.[Via Massively]
Final Fantasy XIV gameplay and emote footage
Holy giant roosters, Final Fantasy XIV gameplay footage has already made its way online courtesy of Gamescom and Gamevideos! Plus, the footage shows off some -- mildly standard -- combat sequences as well. To be fair, we're sure this video would be a lot more exciting if we understood German. As it stands now, we're going by the tone of the presenter's voice, which sounds slightly enthused but generally falls flat in the convincing department.While Mr. Presenter won't be winning any awards, the visuals for the game certainly seem to be worth of a gold statuette of some kind -- possibly something on a fine oak stand with a silver plaque. Oh who are we kidding, the visuals look flat out amazing. This is Square Enix and the Final Fantasy series we're talking about, after all.Check out both mentioned combat video and a nifty animation video after the break.
Anti-Aliased: I'm a champion, and so can you
So last time we had an Anti-Aliased, we had a bit of a tussle. I talked about microtransactions and how I felt about Champions Online's model, and I heard from people who agreed with me, disagreed with me, and who thought I was getting fat bribes from Cryptic Studios. I had people picking apart my thoughts, people saying I was Bill Roper's puppet, and people who really couldn't care less. It was insane.Through all of this though, I want to thank everyone who put in their thoughts onto the article. Even if you disagreed with me, I love seeing that type of discussion going through a topic, and I really appreciate everyone taking the time to make their voices heard, even if it was to tell me that I've sold my integrity. (Which I haven't, by the way.)This week however, we're changing gears but not changing them entirely. It's Champions Online NDA lift time, and boy do I have a preview for you! The rest of their staff got their turn earlier this morning, but now it's my turn to be horribly opinionated with all the words I can fit in my article.Is it good? Is it bad? Is it kind of eh? Well, I'm not saying anything -- I'm just going to relate my initial experiences to you, with snark!
Impressive new Dragon Nest and Dungeon Fighter Online gameplay videos
Nexon America is coming to the Penny Arcade Expo this year, and they've released two very cool new Dungeon Fighter Online and Dragon Nest gameplay videos. Now, we were already curiously interested in Dungeon Fighter Online before, but after seeing this video we're now officially excited to try the game out at PAX.Then you've got this Dragon Nest gameplay video, which really caught our attention when we watched it. This game has seemingly come from left field with combat that looks as though it were ripped straight out of a console action RPG. If you're into these games at all, it should be good times soon enough when they officially release in North America -- DFO sometime soon and DN next year.Click and ogle the videos after the break.
The making of the World of Warcraft
Eurogamer has a nice long look at the early days of World of Warcraft, way before Northrend and Outland and even Molten Core, back when the question wasn't just how big the game would get, but whether Blizzard, a company known for their polish rather than their size, could pull off an entry in this new MMO genre. They've interviewed some of Blizzard's luminaries, and the piece offers a really good look at what it was like at Blizzard even before WoW's release, when they were hashing out some of the ideas and mechanics that have now set the bar with World of Warcraft: the stylistic Warcraft look, and questing as storytelling (originally, they thought they'd only do quests through the starting levels, and then have the game move to a grinding, monster-killing stage towards the end, but players said the game was boring without quests).There are all kinds of great little tidbits in here: originally, Warcraft III was planned with the over-the-shoulder look that WoW now has, and that's one of the reasons they wanted to create a more straightforward RPG game. Tom Chilton showed up on the team about a year before WoW's release, and to his surprise, the game was almost completely unfinished -- the level cap was only 15, the talent system wasn't implemented, the AH or mail systems weren't in, PvP wasn't in at all (of course, even at release it was pretty barebones), and endgame raiding was nonexistent. Most of the things we think of as intrinsic to the World of Warcraft -- even things like the Horde and Alliance not speaking to each other -- were debated and almost not in at all as they moved towards release.
Snood Redood coming to the iPhone
Fortunately, World of Warcraft didn't exist while I was in school, otherwise I might not have finished my venerable BS degree at the storied Ithaca College at all. But if there was one game that almost kept me from finishing all of those essays and homework... well, it was Civ. But if there were two games, the second was Snood. And now that game is due in iPhone form soon as well. It features the same creature-matching gameplay (with both new and old graphics, as you can see above), which means it probably has the same addictive quality that kept me playing long after I was supposed to have read those excerpts the professor gave to us in English class, and three gameplay modes, including Story, Classic, and even a Time Attack mode. "Coming soon" is the word on when it'll be out, though the main webpage actually says "play now," so it probably isn't that far off. It's not the only "Bust a Move" style game out on the App Store, but it is Snood, and that itself is enough to take me back to the days of pizza and beer in the dorm room.
Shadow Complex Achievements arrive with a handful of screens, new trailer
Will Shadow Complex be this year's Bionic Commando: Rearmed -- ya know, minus all that direct nostalgia? Between the 2D platforming, arsenal of weapons, huge bosses, and frosted camera lens, it's getting harder and harder for us not to draw the comparison. One thing the new gameplay you see above features that BC:R lacked? Jumping! (Thankfully!) An Achievement for melee kills (find the whole list after the break) helps to assuage our concerns of, well, not having a robot arm -- though anyone with half a brain knows that third-party human being parts beat out melee weapons every time. Hopefully the extra $5 for Shadow Complex over BC:R means those weapons are really sharp when you check them out on August 19. %Gallery-68437%
Champions Online video showcases character creation
It's been a long time coming, but Cryptic has put out a video through Gamespy detailing character creation with glorious in-game footage of the actual process. If you've been following information on Champions Online for some time now, you probably won't learn anything new in terms of what Bill Roper talks about during the video. However, videos are worth more words than anything else, so we doubt that will bother anyone too much.Soon -- very soon actually -- the open beta will arrive and everyone will get a crack at superhero design in Champions Online. We can't wait to see what kind of craziness people come up with, especially when components are in place to make what appears to be robot-clown-demons and other disturbing concoctions.Check out the full video after the break.
Dante's Inferno trailer features hellish gameplay footage
You're probably getting sick of our frequent comparisons between the God of War series and EA's upcoming poem-to-game conversion of Dante's Inferno. Well, GameTrailers recently got its hands on the first Infern-al gameplay footage to hit the internets, so now we invite you to make your own judgment on the two franchise's similarities. The video's posted after the break -- go ahead and watch it, we'll wait....See? We know! Crazy, right? %Gallery-64908%
King of Fighters Online proves you can kick butt in short skirts, literally
Throughout all of the countless MMOs that we've played, we've always asked ourselves one important question: "Where is Mai Shiranui and why can't I be her?"Today, fellow online gamers, is when that question is finally answered in four words: King of Fighters Online.Yes, the iconic fighting game is making its way to the online stage in the form of a multiplayer brawler. Players will be able to take on not only one another, but also team up for cooperative missions and boss battles. While it's unclear if a "create a fighter" mode will be introduced, the full roster of KoF characters will be available to play. Furthermore, players will be able to jump from character to character during battle by "poofing" into the next character on their roster, much like the team switches from the offline games.Interested in seeing the game in a preliminary demo before it goes into service next year? Why then all you have to do is hit "continue reading" as we've cleverly embedded the first gameplay trailer after the break!
Find in-game friends on Livejournal's WoW Friending meme
The WoW Livejournal communities are really some of the best citizens in the WoW community at large -- they always have interesting discussions and insights going on over there, and if you ever need a question answered or just want an opinion on something in-game, they're always ready with some insight. That's why I think this WoW Friending meme that spirdirslayer has going on is such a good idea -- basically, if you're over on Livejournal and are looking to meet a few players on your realm, you can head over to the page, find your server, and then enter your information along with a few survey questions and check out who else is playing with you in-game.I almost wish Blizzard did more social networking stuff like this -- through the Armory, we can find out everything we need to know about each others' characters these days, but there's not much we can learn about the people behind those characters. Our own profiles here on WoW.com help with some of that as well, but it would be nice to have it all integrated in the game somehow: examine a character and find out that their player is living in the same town you are. Completely optional, of course -- not everyone wants to socialize to that extent. But for those interested, it seems like it would be a lot of fun.
The opposite of Heroics
Reader Malos on Nagrand sent me an interesting idea that I thought was worth some discussion. For a long time now, I've been a big fan of the idea of turning the old instances into Heroic versions -- I think it would be really fun to play Deadmines as a level 80, or roll through Scarlet Monastery for badges. But obviously the problem there is that Blizzard already has enough to do -- they're focused on creating new content, not revamping old instances that people have already played.So Malos has a solution: instead of tweaking the instances to us, how about tweaking us to the instances? He suggests a set of gear, much like the Heirloom gear, that matches your character to whatever instance you happen to step into -- if you enter Deadmines, it powers down your level 80 character to an appropriate power and level for the instance. That way, all Blizzard has to do is make one set of gear per class (that could even scale upwards, so they never have to make it again), and boom, every instance could be played at the standard difficulty by any character any time.Will it happen? Probably not. But I really like the idea of tweaking the players, not the instances, and I think there's a lot of possibility there for Blizzard. They've had such a tough time trying to balance out content for all kinds of players (including all of the hard modes and extra gameplay in Ulduar), that it might be interesting to try and measure the difficulty by going the other way -- balancing players out for all kinds of content.
Ten things WoW players should know from E3
Blizzard, as you probably already know, was not at E3 this year (officially, anyway -- they did have at least a few folks wandering the exhibit halls). But that doesn't mean there wasn't anything for you WoW fans: both Elizabeth Harper and I were there from WoW.com working with our sister sites Joystiq and Massively, and as WoW fans, we saw plenty of awesome games and demos that you should know about.So even if you haven't been paying attention to E3 information on other sites, here's a quick wrapup of ten different things you should know from last week's big convention if you're a WoW player. There were no big expansion announcements or hints at future Blizzard releases -- they're saving all of that for BlizzCon this year. But there were a few games to watch, a few booths to marvel at, and a few trends to notice that you'll want to be aware of even if you're spending most or all of your gaming time in Azeroth. Hit the break for the first four.
Ijji.com unleashes new screenshots for Huxley, Soul of the Ultimate Nation
Ijji.com sent us a whole slew of information about two of its upcoming titles to us today, and we figured that we should pass on the love. If you're looking forward to either Huxley: The Dystopia or Soul of the Ultimate Nation, you'll be happy to hear that we added 10 new screenshots of each to our galleries today. Huxley's screenshots show a few more battle scenes, including the scoped in view on one of their guns, while SUN has elected to show off some spectacular landscapes accompanied by some nice armors. If that wasn't enough, we also have two trailers, one featuring gameplay and the other a pre-rendered video, for Soul of the Ultimate Nation, featuring the Shadow class, included in this post right after the break. The Shadow looks like one heck of a wicked rogue class, so take the leap across the break to see his high flying, fast running stunts that even put the Team Fortress scout to shame. %Gallery-48874% %Gallery-65491%
