Gods vs Humans

Are you ready to take on the challenge of what it takes to be a God?

Gods vs Humans is an original game coming from Zallag; Zallag (founded in 2009) is a producer and publisher of games and entertainment content for the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC through digital distribution channels, and currently the first to be specialized in publishing-distribution-promotion of entertainment content by way of digital distribution only.

In Gods vs Humans, you take the role of one of four different gods. Now the humans are challenging your domain by building a tower to climb up to heaven to confront you. As a god, you have to stop them from building this tower and show them who’s boss.

The gameplay is fairly simple, yet very fun. You have the humans building a tower; now the tower has levels which each contain humans that are working on that level. What you have to do is use your powers to distract the humans, slowing them down, and shooting the pillars on each level to bring that particular level down.

Here’s the deal though, you have 2 sets of powers: Offensive and Defensive. With offensive powers you can attack the pillars of a level, but by doing so you anger the workers on that level. If they’re angry, they stop believing in you, and you need them to believe in you because that’s where you gather your energy from to use your powers. On the other side of things you have your defensive powers, which distract the humans and slow down the tower’s construction and makes the humans happy.

So you see, you have to balance out which powers to use at what time. Use too many offensive powers and you’ll have no one believing in you and before you know it you can’t use any powers. But take too long using defensive powers and you’ll see that before you know it they build the entire tower and enter your domain because you haven’t been destroying any levels.

On top of all that, you have other strategic elements to the game like the fact that destroying a level can effect the levels below it, or that there are special crafting levels or barricaded levels that are hard to destroy, or even humans which are immune to some of your attacks, which in turn you have to scare away with your defensive powers before attacking with your offensive powers.

Gods vs Humans strikes a nice balance between fun and challenge, and to top it off, it has a very unique art style which comes with loads of humor. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing when playing through the demo.

Gods vs Humans, expected to be released this September/October of 2010 on Wiiware, will feature more than 60 levels in solo adventure mode, boss battles, free play mode and a 2-player mode.
Zallag is also releasing a Gods vs Humans comic only sold in digital format.

Be sure to also check out Zallag’s other upcoming game “Racers’ Crazy Racers Islands” and “Racers’ Crazy Arenas Islands” at http://www.zallag.com/

Dawn of War 2: Retribution announced

Announced at Gamescom Europe 2010, Dawn of War 2: Retribution seems to be the biggest expansion pack for Dawn of War 2 yet. And yes, we finally get base building back! Sort of…

While attending a behind-closed-doors showing of the game, the first few details on what to expect from Dawn of War 2: Retribution were disclosed. Here is a list of what to expect from the new title in the franchise:

• Multiple race campaigns
  -Orks announced
  -More to be revealed as we approach release date
• Army Builder
  -More squads to play with (not limited to 4 squads)
  -Resources in single player campaign
  -Special capture points on the map from where the player can call in recruits/ “Build Squad”
  -Population cap in single player (you have to capture special points on the map to raise your population cap in order to call in more build squads)
  -If the player come in with the wrong gear – say they forgot to bring in your suppression unit – they can fix this by building suppression squads and you’re good to go
• Capture headquarters to build vehicles and more

For more details please read on.

To go in a little deeper on what is mentioned on the list, this is what can be said:

For the first time in DoW2, we will be receiving multiple campaigns for different races. ‘Till now the only race announced is the Orks, but there will be more to come.

So what we got a glimpse of is a part of the Orks campaign where we were introduced with a few Ork heroes, new weapons, some really cool looking Ork armor.  The gameplay is more or less the same as previous DoW2 titles in terms of combat, but what’s new is that we have what they call the Army Builder. Resources are captured on the map  and at certain points you have the chance to call in and build more squads. Now what this means in terms of gameplay is that things can get a lot more hectic this time around. Imagine that you come in the mission with your 4 main Squads, then 5 minutes into the mission you realize that you don’t have a suppression squad…but you need one! Well, don’t panic. All you have to do is build some suppression squads and you’re good.

This of course will have you do a lot more micromanaging. No longer are you limited to just 4 squads, but rather you’re limited by your population cap.

And finally, we were shown that vehicles can be built at HQ’s on the single player maps. Other than that, there isn’t much more to say about the demo that was shown. This is the same game you love, with more content, more campaigns for different races, and a new base building system.

What’s not to love?

Dawn of War 2: Retribution will be arriving March 2011.

The destruction continues: Red Faction Battlegrounds

Announced at Gamescom Europe 2010, here are a few things you might want to know about the game:

• Downloadable Game
• 4-player co-op on and offline (including combined 3 vs 1 local vs internet)
• Top-down view of battlefield
• Different kinds of vehicles
• Destruction will still play a big roll
• Primary and Secondary weapons
• Pick up ammo and shields to resupply
• Armageddon DLC (tie in with story)
• Origin Tv-Series DLC (tie in with story)

Game Modes:

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• King of the Hill
• Capture the Flag
• Singleplayer Challenges

Will be released before Red Faction Armageddon.

Owning one of the two titles will give you benefits for the other. So owning both will give you bonuses in both games. Also announced is that a new Sci-Fi TV Series will be coming to the Sci-Fi channel which will cover some more story about the Red Faction Universe.

Behind closed doors: Red Faction Armageddon

During our behind-closed-doors showing of Red Faction Armageddon demo we were able to get a glimpse of the new gameplay and art direction.

Here is basically what you need to know:

Armageddon takes place two decades after RF: Guerrilla. A war is going on on the surface of mars which drove the people to go underground. Now because of this new setting, in terms of location and technology advancements, the team got the chance to come up with a new style and look for the game including new advanced weaponry.

Here is a list of notable things that were apparent from the demo:

Weapons

• Magnet Gun (shoot a tag point and then a second point to have the first tagged object pull itself towards the second one)
• Singularity Cannon (shoot a missile which creates a gravity point which sucks everything that’s in a close radius in and the explodes)
• Repair (repair anything back to it’s original state)
• Shockwave (let out a pulse around you which knocks the enemy off the ground where they would be immobilized in mid-air for awhile )
• Impact (fire a burst in front of you to clear your path)

Gameplay

Graphics

• On the graphics side we can see that there are a lot more colors this time around.
  The developers told us: In RF:Guerrilla we only had 1 source of light: the sun. In Armageddon since we’re now underground we have a lot of light-sources throughout the level. Now the exciting thing about this is that, imagine demolishing a building with lights, now as it comes down you can see all the lights reflecting on the ground and on buildings before it crashes on the ground getting rid of the light-source
• It’s not only going to take place underground though, we will be going all over the planet of mars which will bring a lot of variety graphics-wise
• You can literally take out all the lights in a section which will leave the tunnel pitch black. Which you can then use flare guns and grenades to light the rooms etc. Even on the guns and nano forge powers you can see that there are a lot of light effect which reflect on the world. It’s just really cool to play with the lights and destruction and other features
• They also brought the camera closer to the shoulder of the protagonist, and a reason for that is that having the camera closer to the action you can also see the monsters better and everything is more detailed

Medal of Honor Reboot at E3

Having just watched the Medal of Honor preview from the EA Conference all I can say is, BRING IT ON!

Medal of Honor has significantly decreased in popularity in the last few years, so this is essentially a reboot of the franchise. Gone is the World War 2 theme and in with the Modern Warfare theme. Now allot of people have been comparing Medal of Honor with Modern Warfare 2, and rightfully so. It seems EA is gunning to try and mimic Modern Warfare 2 but then improve on it to try and take the FPS-throne away. Read more

Red Dead Redemption Multiplayer Free Roam Trailer

With Red Dead Redemption coming out this May Rockstar has been releasing allot of trailers leading up to the release teasing us of the many features of what this game has to offer. With the latest trailer Rockstar is showing us how they are single-handily redefining the genre of Multiplayer in an open-world game.

Check out the Jaw Dropping Free Roam Multiplayer mode below and let us know what you think

This is only one multiplayer mode in Red Dead Redemption. More modes will be revealed as we get closer to the release date.

Red Dead  Redemption is coming out this May 2010 and will be released on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
No word yet on a PC version of the game.

Mass Effect Universe Part 3

Okay, so I’ve covered Mass Effect 1 and 2, what more is there to cover you ask?

Well, there is also a Mass Effect iPhone game, but I haven’t played that so I can’t comment on that.
What I can comment about are the books. Now this article is all about giving kudos to the developers that take the time to expand on the universe that they’ve created and just enriches the overall franchise.

At the moment there are two Mass Effect Novels written by Drew Karpyshyn and onefour-part comic series still in progress(written by the lead writer of ME2 and published by Dark Horse Comics) with a third novel in the works.

Before I took my first step into the massive universe of Mass Effect world I had already had dipped my toes into the water. Back in may 2008 when ME1 was released for the PC, I had to wait for my order to get imported from the U.S.  Now in that time I was all hyped by the amazing review scores it got on the Xbox 360 and the amazing trailers that were released. I couldn’t wait to get in. So while I was waiting for my copy I thought of checking out the first book Mass Effect: Revelation which was set as a prequel to the events of ME1. So I got myself an audiobook copy and dove right in. Upon “reading” the first few chapters I was introduced to the world and the technology of Mass Effect.

Now I have to mention that these Novels have their own story and their own main characters and are stand alone novels. Read more

Mass Effect Universe Part 2

Mass Effect 2

So, now we continue with the 2^nd part of this article which is the Mass Effect 2 review.
Now I wanted to review ME before ME2 because I wanted to go over the changes that have been made to ME2 and because your story, yes, YOUR STORY….continues.

Yes, at the end of ME one your game makes an end-game save-file which stores all the important information  about who you interacted with, what you told them, who you saved and what you did in the game. And when you start up ME2 you can load up that save-file and continue your adventure. This isn’t just a numbered sequel set in the same universe, no, this is a true sequel picking up where the story of the last game left off with the characters of that story and with your personalized Shepard from the first game. Read more

EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Tops March Sales Charts

Although not as big of a release as let’s say it’s competitor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s huge opening numbers (best selling game in history), EA reported yesterday March 18th that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has currently sold more than 2.3M units as the top selling March title on record in North America and Europe. The game has gone double-platinum in the two weeks since its March 2 release on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

The game that targeted to take Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s multiplayer crown away is still holding it’s ground.

a quote from the press release states:

The momentum of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 can also be seen across social media networks and in the game’s statistics:

• 81B points have been earned in online multiplayer sessions
• 43M weapons and gadgets have been unlocked in online multiplayer
• Over 6M video views on YouTube
• 2.9M hours have been spent playing online in the last 24 hours alone
• 230K peak-concurrent-users (PCUs)
• Over 44k Twitter fans (most out of any EA title)

Full press release can be found --> here <--

Battlefield:Bad Company 2′s success on the PC could be credited to the fact that DICE made it very clear early on that the game would support dedicated servers while Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would not, thus winning over allot of the PC gamers.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 continues on taking jabs at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 by announcing that the 2nd VIP (VIP code with every new copy of the game. 15 dollars if you want a VIP code for the DLC) map pack will be available on the 30th of March, which is the same day that CoD:MW2′s getting it’s first map pack. Bad Company 2′s map pack will be free to owners of a new game and to all platforms on the same day however while CoD:MW2′s map pack will be a timed Xbox360 exclusive and will cost 15 dollars.

Mass Effect Universe Part 1

Pushing the boundaries of personalizing a game.

So first off I want to start by saying that I am a Bioware fan, I love what they’re doing with their games and what they are offering to the Gaming Industry.

Bioware is a game developer company that makes computer and console video games. They are best known for their games Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
They were also behind the recently successful game Dragon Age: Origins.
Bioware majors in creating Role Playing Games and have recently experimented on mixing other genres with the RPG formula, and have been mostly successful at that. Read more