Hands on Castlevania Lords of Shadow

During the Japan Expo event at the early July in Paris, a demo of the PS3 version of Castlevania Lords of Shadow was playable at the Konami booth.

Developed by MercuryStream and produced by Hideo Kojima, “father” of Metal Gear hero Snake, this game is the first instalment of the series as an action game with some RPG elements. We were able to play the first stage of the game, more like a tutorial, to learn the basics of the game: the different attacks with the whip, the secondary weapons (such as daggers), how to dodge or to unlock combos and other attacks.

The game truly is an AAA title made like a movie with some incredible cinematic scenes as good as Hollywood movies, as usual with Kojima productions. Graphics are smooth and pretty good, but darker than usual. The game takes place (as usual) in the surroundings of Dracula’s Castle, in a village by a stormy night. This game surely looks like a mature one. There’s a new hero, Gabriel Belmont, who looks like a virile and muscular men breaking with the “tradition” of young and quite androgyne men. Gabriel just want is sweat heart to be brought back to life. As Gabriel arrives at the village, villagers are all afraid of something scary and the village is soon attacked by werewolves.

So you can jump into the action. The whip has a wide range, is easy to use and can maintain enemies to distance. So werewolves are very easy to whip off. There’s just one annoying thing: graphics are so dark that enemies aren’t easy to find. Fortunately, you can see the red spots of their eyes, the only way to spot enemies! Gabriel gains XP points by defeating enemies and can unlock many things later on. The game is very fluid, easy to pick up and fun to play. But when killing enemies, it is hard to try and read all the indications that pop up, informing you of how to use items, heal, grab the enemy and so on. At the end of the stage, there’s a huge beast to defeat as you can see in the video (and the cinematics too).

I had no time to play the second part of the demo version, where Gabriel rides a horse to escape. I just wanted some impressions on this game and it looks really promising. Sometimes, villagers will come and try to help you, but don’t expect too much of them!

Castlevania Lords of Shadow is a very pleasant game and has everything gamers ask for a good title: good graphics, good scenario and realisation, good music and dubbings, very mature background. Let’s hope this game won’t be too easy: the Castlevania series is famous for being difficult but this demo version seemed less difficult than normal. Gamers have to play this game when it is released for the XBOX 360 and PS3 by the end of the year.

Two Worlds 2 preview

My opinion on the first two worlds was that it was fun, but many other people that I talk to about the game didn’t like it or never heard of it. This could be for a couple reasons: first off, it came out near the same time as Oblivion did, and many people already play Oblivion so they just ignored Two Worlds altogether. Either that or they sold it back to the store because of the lack of polish that you could clearly see in the game. This is not the case in Two Worlds 2, they have made such an improvement in terms of graphics in comparison to the first one. Some of these improvements include: sunsets, rippling water, and when you run through grass it sways. I think that even now they are putting more minor details into the game. Read more

Green Day: Rock Band Review

The latest installment in the Rock Band title series, Green Day: Rock Band is a fun game if you are a hardcore fan from their original Album 39/Smooth, a semi-new fan from American Idiot, or a new fan who picked up Green Day: Rock Band for the first time. This game has everything you wanted… Unless you don’t like Green Day. Read more

Need a Job? Microsoft is Hiring.

After the announcement of Halo Reach being Bungie’s last dab in the Halo Universe, Microsoft’s 343 Industries want to work on more games based around the Halo Universe.

The jobs page on Microsoft’s web page was updated with 15 new job titles including 9 that were already posted.

If you got what it takes, visit their website at:

http://www.microsoft-careers.com/go/343-Industries-Jobs/190537/

Update: Project Milo to Be Released, Not This Year.

Remember this article? Well forget about it.

Looks like the Virtual Boy lives again (not the Nintendo Console) with an announced mate, Kate! Lionhead, the producer of the tech demo for the Kinect, has decided to make him into his own game after all. Looks like Milo will not die alone after all in a cold storage center.

“Project Milo absolutely continues in development at Lionhead Studios,”
said Microsoft Project Manager Aaron Greenberg.

“It is just not a product we plan to bring to market this holiday. The team at Lionhead has always been a center of innovation and will continue to deliver against that charter.”

Looks like we can look forward to Milo and Kate coming out sometime in the future.

Four years in the making: The long awaited sequels

Many gamers anxiously await the next installment for their favorite game franchises. Here are two games many people have been waiting for, and after four years, the time has finally come.

Dead Rising 2- After the platinum hit Dead Rising came out for Xbox 360 back in 2006, gamers have been waiting for a sequel. The wait is now over, because on August 31, 2010, Dead Rising 2 will be hitting the store shelves.

The character you play as this time around is motocross champion Chuck Greene. He travelled to the city to perform in the tv reality show, “Terror is Reality”; a show that dares contestants to survive in a zombie infested location for 72 hours, like in the first game. This game, however, offers a whole new way to play. You can either mow down hordes of zombies by yourself, or you and another friend can do it together. I think the co-op gameplay was a good decision by the game developers, seeing as being able to play with your friend will most likely make gamers want to play it even more.

Another cool feature in Dead Rising 2 is combining weapons to make a deadlier one. For instance:

Boxing Gloves + Bowie Knife = Claws

Gas Can + SuperSoaker = FlameThrower

…there are loads of combinations.

I recommend getting Dead Rising 2 simply because of all the brand new features that make this game deeper and more interesting than its predecessor. Perhaps this could even get more people into playing zombie games.

CrackDown 2- After CrackDown was released in 2006, gamers knew there was going to be a sequel, but they didn’t expect it to take Realtime Worlds four years to get the game out there; the company has been working on new and different projects.

After defeating the guy in the research facility in CrackDown, the streets of Pacific City have become infested with zombies. The remaining civilians have formed a group called “The Cell” and are trying to take down the mutants, as well as “The Agency”. Your task is to sabotage key Cell structures and to raid underground mutant tunnels.

Some new additions to the game will be: online four player co-op, you are able to drive a helicopter when your driving skill is high enough, and a new orb is presented to you called “The Renegade Orb”; this orb has a unique feature which allows it to move away from you as you attempt to collect it. Also, when you have maxed out your agility, there is an award called the “Wing Suit” which lets you glide around town.

CrackDown 2 is going to hit stores July 6, 2010.

Project Milo a ‘No Go’ (UPDATE)

Lionhead Studio’s press demo from 2009 for the Kinect, Project Milo, is “Not A Game We’re Planning To Bring To The Market” says Lionhead Studios.

Project Milo was one of the most innovative ideas for the Kinect, allowing you to interact with an AI in a real-time environment.

A lot of the ideas put into Project Milo have appeared in the upcoming game for the Kinect, Kinectimals AKA Skittles Happy Fun Time Adventure; Read more

Motion-sensing, role-playing games and the rise of Nintendo

Thoughts on E3 2010

E3 2010 is now over and now that I’ve recuperated from all the news and announcements, it’s time to make up the balance. It’s a shame I couldn’t witness it first-hand, but luckily we live in the age of internet, so I got my daily updates of game trailers, interviews and what not. And from what I saw, the E3 didn’t disappoint as much as I initially feared: in fact, I’m quite satisfied. My expectations before hand weren’t especially high, but I crossed my fingers and hoped Nintendo would redeem itself and make up for the lost years. And for me, they did. Nintendo stole the show. I’ve seen so many good things from them this E3 I don’t know where to start. I got the feeling Microsoft really wanted their Kinect thing to be a big deal, but from what I saw, it’s pretty dull. You’d almost fear they follow in Nintendo’s footsteps and try to be popular with all target audiences except gamers (I don’t think they will, fortunately).

As for the assortment of games on both Xbox360 and PS3, I can’t say I’m particularly surprised but they’ve shown some good stuff. I’m really looking forward to Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, for instance. I have ever since the first trailers, but the new footage looked pretty rad and impressed me even more. I can’t wait to play the game! Furthermore, I was mildly enthusiastic about a new Silent Hill game, and although I found the trailer I saw pretty unimpressive, I still hope it will be a great game. Time will tell, I suppose.

The title of this article pretty much sums up the E3 for me. I was surprised by how many (relatively) high-profile role-playing games were shown this year. We have Fable 3, which hardly impressed me since all I’ve heard the developers say about it sounded like boring yip-yap to me and I’ve never really liked the series, and another similar game: Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned. A movie-license RPG, loosely based on the Pirates? That’s the last thing I expected to see (no news of this game had come to my attention beforehand, but this may have to do with the fact that any game that even has Pirates of the Caribbean in the title is instantly uninteresting to me). The movies (well… the first movie) have great settings and pirates are indeed cool, so it seems like a good idea on paper. However, I’ve couldn’t have been disappointed more by any pirate-themed game of the last few years, so how is this going to be better?

Furthermore, is it me or is this game similar to Fable (in style, at least)? I’m sure you won’t get to sim your own kingdom but the visual style seems familiar. And from what demo footage I’ve seen, so does the gameplay! Not necessarily a bad thing, but I’ll wait and see how it will turn out.

The biggest RPG this E3 (probably), was of course Star Wars: the Old Republic. Too bad I’ve heard nothing of Dragon Age 2 or Mass Effect 3, but with such a project on the way, I sort of understand Bioware may not have had the time. From what I’ve seen and heard, it seems the game is going to be pretty epic and bad-ass. Admitted, I have a minor dislike for the graphics (it’s a very weird cartoony style), especially when compared to the downright bad-ass FMV trailers, but I can easily adjust. The biggest problem for me is the fact that it’s a MMO. I don’t know what it is exactly, but MMO games don’t interest me that much. This is a shame, since the game looks actually promising otherwise, and I know how high the quality of Bioware RPG’s normally is. Were this a normal RPG, I wouldn’t probably eagerly await it’s release, but now I likely won’t touch is. I still hope it turns out to be a good game, though (I’ll wait for Mass Effect 3).

I’m also a little interested in Deus Ex: Human Revolution due to the trailer alone. I’ve no real experience with the series and it might not be my kind of game at all, but at least the trailer was fantastic and really got me into the atmosphere.

Also: Marvel vs Capcom 3. It’s like Tatsunoko vs Capcom was just a preview to what was to come. I’m sure the announcement got the fans crazy and it was good to see the game playable at the E3. We already knew this was coming before, but more info and footage is a good thing. I myself actually have mixed feelings: I know these types of fighting games are too over the top for me and I generally don’t like them too much, but I’ve got to say: MvC3 looks pretty damn good. I’m anxious to see how it turns out!

And then, of course, there is Nintendo. Oh, how Nintendo has delivered this E3! A new Metroid and Zelda are always welcome and although those weren’t the real surprises to me, it’s good to see they’ve still got it over at Nintendo. The new Zelda looks like a Wind Waker/Twilight Princess mix to me and I don’t know what to think of it, but at least they keep the fans happy. Me, I’m not such a fan of the series (strange, I know) but even I admit it looks pretty good. With all the disappointments Nintendo has accumulated during the last few years almost anything looks good, but together with the other things they have in store for us the impact is enormous and their reputation might just be saved. For behold, it is the Nintendo 3DS! I of course have to start with how pointless the DSi and enlarged DSLite seem in light of this new handheld but fortunately they announced it fast enough so I know to keep the money in my pocket and just wait for the 3DS. Of course, I haven’t played on a 3DS yet so I couldn’t say whether it’s really impressive, but if it works I might be hyped up to get one (even though I’d be the first to complain about the whole 3D crazy of this day and age). 3D games might be a great thing if it works without problems, and I look forward to what it might have in store for us. Not too impressed with the games so far, but these are just the launch games and I have no problem waiting until more good stuff becomes available. As far as handhelds go, Nintendo has rarily (if at all) disappointed me.

But arguably the biggest thing Nintendo could’ve possibly announced as far as I’m concerned was a new entry in the Donkey Kong Country series. And they did it. They REALLY did it. It looks good, it looks fresh and comfortably familiar at the same time, it sounds good, it’s awesome! I really, really look forward to this game and probably hype it to the stars. I love everything that is and was DKC, and if this game is even only half as good as its predecessors, it’s still pure gold. I keep my fingers crossed!

Next to Castlevania, DKC is the thing I most look forward to, but there are many others great games at E3 this year. These were the ones I was most interested in, but be sure to check the news for a lot of other good stuff. Now we can only wait and see if the GamesCom can shed new light on the matter!

New IP for Konami: Neverdead

Konami Digital Entertainment has announced that there is a new IP called Neverdead coming to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Neverdead is a third person action title under the genres of fantasy and survival hoorror. The player has access to a unique sword, whose abilities have yet to be seen, as well as a large arsenal of assorted weaponrywhich they will use to decimate the demonic forces. In the trailer, the main character, Neverdead, is seen weilding dual handguns, which provides for an action experience seemingly similar to bayonetta or Devil May Cry.

Neverdead takes place in an alternate future, where the world has been overrun by hordes of demons. The protagonist, Neverdead, has been given the power to transcend death, making him unable to die. You play as an undead hero who makes use of his regenerative abilities to fight off the evils and rid the city of the demonic plague.

The big thing about Neverdead is the unique healing system that it offers, which also has yet to be explained in detail. What can be seen in the trailer is similar to something like rewinding time, but it is most likely just putting your head back on once you grab it. Could be interesting, having to put yourself back together in the midst of battle, we will see.

With Neverdead, Konami and the team behind the title want to provide the player with a new IP that sports all kinds of interesting gameplay and frightening worlds to explore and decimate with deadly weaponry and exciting swordplay. Read more

Konami E3: Adrenalin Misfits for Kinect

The big news from Konami on Monday during the Microsoft presentation at E3 has left tons of fans applauding and cheering, which is the new Metal Gear title from Konami Digital Entertainment: Metal Gear Solid: Rising. But there is more…

Adrenalin Misfits will be released as a Kinect-only title for the XBOX360, the game was shown on several play booths at the convention and it features board-riding monsters battling each other on seven different locations in the virtual world. It can be on snowy peaks, stormy deserts, limestone grottos etc. The style of art will be a mix of cartoony characters and realistic environments, somewhat similar to Sonic the Hedgehog.

With the motion capture technology of Kinect, players can practice their skills as if they are snowboarding in real life. The characters can do jumps, turns and flips like real pros. Players can choose between in-game characters, their customized characters or their XBOX360 Avatars.

The game features multiplayer function, where you can battle each other or race each other to the finish. However, the game looks fun in single player mode as well, trying to beat the game or beat your own record.

Adrenaline Misfits has several game modes, such as Downhill Slalom where the player can beat his opponents or his personal record. Read more

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