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Canceled ‘Avengers’ Game Footage Surfaces

Dave Oshry — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:17:05 +0000

Before THQ Australia was shut down, they’d been working on an Avengers game.

Today, some footage from said game has surfaced. It appears to be a first person brawler of epic proportions.

HULK SMASH!!

With an Avengers movie in the works for Summer 2012, let’s hope this project sees the light of day in some form… and that SEGA doesn’t end up with the license. *cough* Thor *cough*

UK Retailer: “Pre-owned Marketplace Good for the Industry”

Sam Naylor — Tue, 24 May 2011 11:33:29 +0000

Ian Shepherd, CEO of UK retailer GAME, has said that despite repeated claims from software publishers that pre-owned games hurt them, the trade-in market can only be a good thing.

Publishers have even begun implementing features to prevent pre-owned players from having the full game (passes for online play, for example), but Shepherd says that even they are coming round to the idea that trade-ins are going to stay.

He said:

“I think, through conversations with developers and platform owners, that there is a growing realisation that a healthy pre-owned marketplace is good for the whole industry.

“It has made the mint marketplace more affordable and has kept people in that marketplace. There has been endless debate over pre-owned versus mint, but my view is that a healthy pre-owned and trade-in marketplace – which we are largely the people who are involved in driving – is good for the whole industry.”

Via MCV

PS3s Being Traded In 200% More Than Usual in UK

Sam Naylor — Thu, 12 May 2011 20:41:24 +0000

An anonymous UK retailer has said that thanks to the PlayStation Network downtime PS3 trade-ins have gone up 200 per cent.

“In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades,” said a store manager at a UK gaming outlet. “However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.”

Another source told EDGE that they have seen a “massive increase” in the amount of people trading in their PS3s for Xbox 360s.

When the PSN went offline on the 20th April, and the software sales figures reflect this. Call of Duty: Black Ops sales split 59%/30% for the Xbox the following week, and last week the sales were split 66%/24% again in the Xbox’s favour.

One of EDGE‘s sources said:

“Pre-orders have been cancelled and flipped over to 360 versions of games… A lot of people have been phoning asking us about personal details on PSN as they are struggling to get a response from Sony themselves. Overall, people that have traded with us seem annoyed at how Sony has handled all of this, and say they would not trust them with details again in the future.”

Unfortunately GAME, the UK’s biggest retailer, failed to comment. Obviously this would have given a better overall picture of the state of Sony in the UK but it’s still interesting information to ponder upon. Have any of you traded in your PS3s for 360s? Will you still trust Sony with your details if they ever bring the PSN back? Let us know in the comments.

New Ocarina of Time 3DS Features Announced

Bryce Wilson — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:28:42 +0000

Some time ago a number of ‘new features’ were announced for the Nintendo 3DS remake of perhaps one of gamings greatest titles.

Up until this point however nothing much was known about these new features, but RipTen can now pull off the mysterious veil and reveal what they actually are.

First cab off the rank is “Boss Challenge” mode, a type of gauntlet minigame that allows you to replay all the bosses you’ve encountered throughout the course of the main storyline.

You can also verse them all in a row, however it’s currently not known if you will receive any reward or unlock for your hard work. I think that’s a pretty logical addition, though.

The second new addition is a bunch of in-game video guides that will help newcomers to the series get to grips with in-game mechanics and features. As a long time fan of the game and franchise I can see this being a welcome addition, as I still have trouble with that fucking Water Temple!

Either way, new features or not, Ocarina of Time 3D is going to be a beautiful title and is the sole reason I’m picking up a Nintendo 3DS.

What’s your thoughts on the features? Let us know in the comments below, or tell me via Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Source: [The Nintendo Basement]

Watch This Insane Chun-Li Spammer Hit A 999 Strike MvC3 Combo

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:49:08 +0000

Want to see something that would seriously piss me off? Check this out:

Whilst the combo itself isn’t that impressive, it’s still pretty insane to see someone hit 999 on the combo counter, although I’m not that proud of the player for doing it through spamming a blatant in-game exploit.

What do you think, cool or not? Let us know in the comments below or via Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Source: [Dualshock Nexus]

GDC11: Bungie’s Next Game Confirmed to be an MMO

Garrett Hartman — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 04:36:19 +0000

During the Bungie presentation at GDC, lead network engineer David Aldrige confirmed Bungie’s next game will be an MMO.

While very stingy on details, Aldridge made sure to point out it would not be a “WoW in Space”. This was in response to earlier rumors. The game has previous been described as “having something for everyone”.

This will be the first game to be created by Bungie and published by Activision as part of their 10 year multiplatform agreement.

I’ve got to admit, it seems that Bungie is going out of their way to make something different with this one. It will be interesting to finally find out what this game will be.

Source

New “Naked City” Trailer Shows Off L.A. Noire Pre-order Bonus

Matthew Sims — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:26:00 +0000

With most of the trailers for L.A. Noire out of the way, there’s precious few things to explore before the game comes out in May. The latest trailer shows a Gamestop exclusive pre-order bonus that focuses on a murdered beauty.

The case, titled The Naked City, Cole Phelps investigates the apparent suicide of fashion model. When the young beauty is tragically found naked in her bathroom amidst a pool of pills, the most likely conclusion is that she has taken her own life. But the appearance of bruises starts to put doubt into the mind of the young detective and he yearns to get to the bottom of the case.

If you want to get the bonus case, be sure to pre-order the game at your local Gamestop or Game (in US, Canada, or UK only). If you’re still undecided check out the teaser trailer below.

British Academy Video Games Awards Nominees Announced

Sam Naylor — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:08:53 +0000

Fourty-four games have been named as nominees in this year’s GAME British Academy Video Games Awards.

The nominations are below, and it’s a mighty list, with some heavyweight contenders. It’s interesting that when you put them into a list like this, it seems like there were shedloads of great games last year. Super Meat Boy of course being the best one by far.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood leads with 7 nominations, and Call of Duty: Black Ops and Heavy Rain follow it with 6 each.

Action
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Steve Caterson
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Artistic Achievement
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Ken Feldman, Cecil Kim
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Best Game
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal
FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development Team
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Family
Dance Central
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

Kinect Adventures
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Good Science Studio

Kinect Sports
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Rare

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Toy Story 3
John Blackburn, Jonathan Warner, Jeff Bunker
Disney Interactive Studios/Avalanche Software

Gameplay
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

God of War III
Stig Asmussen, Todd Papy, Adam Puhl
Sony Computer Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica Studio

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Development TeamElectronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Handheld
Cut the Rope
Development Team
Chillingo/Zeptolab

God of War: Ghost of Sparta
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Ready at Dawn & SCE Santa Monica Studio

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
Development Team
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/TT Games

Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Akihiro Hino
Nintendo/Level 5 Games

Sonic Colours
Development Team
SEGA/Sonic Team

Super Scribblenauts
Joseph M Tringali, Marius Fahlbusch, Jeremiah Slaczka
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment/5th Cell

Multiplayer
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Alan Kertz, Kristoffer Bergqvist
Electronic Arts/DICE

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Development Team
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Original Music
Alan Wake
Petri Alanko
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

Fable III
Russell Shaw
Microsoft Games Studios/Lionhead Studios

Heavy Rain
Normand Corbeil
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

James Bond 007: Bloodstone
Richard Jacques
Activision Blizzard UK/ Bizarre Creations

Mass Effect 2
Jack Wall
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koji Kondo
Nintendo/Nintendo

Social Network Game
Bejeweled Blitz
Jon David, Heather Hazen, Jason Kapalka
Popcap Games/Popcap Games

Farmerama
Tobias Reisberger, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier, Marten Schröder
Bigpoint/Bigpoint

FIFA Superstars
Development Team
EA Sports/Playfish

My Empire
Development Team
Playfish/Playfish

Zoo Mumba
Tobias Reisberger, Eduard Röhrich, Jan-Michel Saaksmeier
Bigpoint GMBH/Bigpoint GMBH

Zuma Blitz
Isaac Aubrey, Jon David, Jason Kapalka
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Sports
F1 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Codemasters Birmingham

FIFA 11
Development Team
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Football Manager 2011
Development Team
SEGA/Sports Interactive

Gran Turismo 5
Development Team
Sony Computer Entertainment/Polyphony Digital Inc

International Cricket 2010
Development Team
Codemasters/Trickstar Games

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
Shingo Takatsuka, Naoya Hatsumi, Jon Murphy
Konami/Winning Eleven Productions

Story
Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy

BioShock 2
Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon
2K Games/2K Marin

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Fallout: New Vegas
John Gonzalez, Eric Fenstermaker, Travis Stout
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Mass Effect 2
Development TeamElectronic Arts/BioWare

Strategy
Civilization V
Jon Shafer, Dorian Newcomb, Brian Wade
2K Games/Firaxis

Fallout: New Vegas
Josh Sawyer, Frank Kowalkowski, Justin Reynard
Bethesda Softworks/Obsidian Entertainment

FIFA Manager 11
Development Team
EA Sports/Bright Future

Napoleon Total War
Development Team
SEGA/Creative Assembly

Plants vs. Zombies XBLA
George Fan, Matt Lee Johnston, Ty Roberts
PopCap Games/PopCap Games

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Development Team
Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

Technical Innovation
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Adam Rosas, Scott Bean, Dom Drozdz
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Halo: Reach
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
David Cage, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Scott Johnson
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Kinectimals
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Frontier Developments Ltd

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Koichi Hayashida, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Takashi Tezuka
Nintendo/Nintendo

Use of Audio
Alan Wake
Development Team
Microsoft Games Studios/Remedy/14.05.10

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Development Team
Ubisoft Entertainment/Ubisoft Montreal/19.11.10

Battlefield: Bad Company: 2
Stefan Strandberg
Electronic Arts/DICE/05.03.10

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch/ 09.11.10

DJ Hero 2
Development Team
Activision Blizzard UK LTD/Freestylegames/22.10.10

LIMBO
Development Team
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games/21.07.10

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital
Mush
Henry Hoffman, Ahmed Zaman, Matthew Dennis, Katherine Killick, Greg O’Brien
(Angry Mango)

Sculpty
Druhin Mukherjee, Fabien Roussot, James Long, Fraser Littlejohn, Ronan Suess
(Team Tickle)

Twang
Jocce Marklund, Annette Nielsen, Linus Nordgren, Marcus Heder, Thomas Finlay
(That Game Studio)

GAME Award of 2010
(The only award to be voted for by the public)

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Activision Blizzard UK Ltd/Treyarch

Dance Central
Microsoft Games Studios & MTV Games/MTV & Harmonix

FIFA 11
Electronic Arts/ Electronic Arts Canada

Halo Reach
Microsoft Games Studios/Bungie

Heavy Rain
Sony Computer Entertainment/Quantic Dream & XDev Studio Europe

Limbo
Xbox Live Arcade/Playdead Games

Mass Effect 2
Electronic Arts/BioWare

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games/Rockstar San Diego

Super Mario Galaxy 2
Nintendo/Nintendo

RipTen Magicka Contest Winners Announced!

Bryce Wilson — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:56:04 +0000

Last week RipTen was lucky enough to receive a handful of codes for Arrowhead Game Studios brand new title Magicka – and now we announce the winners of those codes…

We had over forty entries and it made choosing only five extremely difficult, however I think even the people who miss out will be able to have a laugh about the winners who we’ve selected. For the people who we selected as winners (Below), make sure to check your email account for your Steam code. We will also provide details on how you can redeem the code if you’re unsure of how to go about doing so.

The Winners:

Ringu Pingu:

“Summon Penguin Army”! Ice, Cold, Ice, Water, Life.

Image I made (photoshopped, that is, I did not make any of it) to show off this spells awesome power. (Image below)

shuin:

Spell called angry beans. You self cast it and your character farts. The area with the fart is lethal to enemies and friends alike. Especially to friends.

Cem Temeltas:

Maybe a spell that would conjure cacao, milk and hazelnuts. With enough heat and magic, you could make Nutella with it. Well, since you have Nutella, what else would matter in the world? Right?

Gordorix Ten:

I propose a spell with the unspeakable power of turning any situation into a Musical, converting every attempted movement into dance and every dramatic action into song.

Imagine, those goblins you were fighting for dear life, now shooting at you with rhythm and mojo, singing their folk rhymes in choir as they try their best at murdering you.

Well there you go folks, there’s your winners… Oh, what’s that? We only selected four? Well here’s the fifth winner below, because it was just too priceless to leave out!

Dux:

A spell that automatically wins me any giveaway, regardless of the magnitude of the award and the conditions for its achievement.

P.S.
I’ve cast it just now.

A big thanks goes out to each and every one of our entrants and we hope you will stick around RipTen for more Reviews, Interviews, Previews, Trailer Events, News and Competitions!

Is a Walking Dead Video Game in the Works?

Bryce Wilson — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:22:13 +0000

AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ might be in the running to receive a video game announcement based on the TV series and comic book at an upcoming San Francisco press event on the 17th of February.

The invitation to the event details a five part multi-platform game announcement from Telltale, the developers of the episodic Jurassic Park and Back to the Future titles. Among the expected announcements is “one based on a just-launched property from the TV and comic book world whose popularity is changing life as some know it.”

Whilst nothing is set in concrete right now, The Walking Dead could work amazingly well as a story based game and that’s something Telltale Games has been known to create in the past. Would you like to see a game based on The Walking Dead? Let us know in the comments below or tell me via Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Source: [1Up]

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Pre-Order Bonuses (Finally) Announced

Dave Oshry — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:57:55 +0000

Capcom has just (finally) announced the pre-order bonuses for MvC3. They happen to be some bad ass T-shirts. You know you want em. Read on for details!!

Pre Order from Blockbuster (there’s still blockbusters?) for Xbox 360 and PS3 and get THIS shirt:

Pre-order from GAME (Xbox 360 and PS3) and get THIS shirt:

Pre-Order from Gamestop (Xbox 360 and PS3) and get THIS shirt:

Pre-order from HMV (Xbox 360 and PS3) and get THIS shirt:

Pre-Order from TheHUT (Xbox 360 and PS3) and get THIS shirt:

Pre-order from Xtravision: (Xbox 360 and PS3) and get THIS shirt:

Apparently your local independent store will have the shirt below (umm who?)

ShopTo: Comes with the special Marvel Vs Capcom 3 comic, which includes lots of art and the entries from the winners of the Art Competition! (Xbox 360 and PS3)

Last but not least – GameStation: The Steel Book edition – an amazing steel box replaces the standard packaging with artwork from the Marvel artists – Alvin Lee, Joe Ng and Shinkiro! (Xbox 360 and PS3)

Get ready for the fight of the universes when Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate Of Two Worlds crashes in on the 18th February 2011!

RAGE Comes to iPhone / iPad Tomorrow

Garrett Hartman — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:44:46 +0000

That’s right iPhone users, starting tomorrow a mobile version of RAGE will be available at the iTunes store (Android owners like myself are jealous).

John Carmack tweeted the news earlier today, “RAGE mobile has been approved, it should be on the app store tomorrow morning!”

Think it’s going to cost a alot…think again. At $.99 for the SD version or 1.99 for a HD version, it’s a virtual steal.

Nothing like killing mutants on a mobile phone.

Remember when John showed the game off at Quake Con running on an iPhone at 60 FPS? Yeah, it’s sick.

The Jersey Shore RPG – Fist Pumping For The Win

Dave Oshry — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:10:46 +0000

I am at a loss for words at the sheer brilliance of this. The situation is that I want to play this game right now. College Humor has done it again. This baby is gonna go viral.

Watch as the guys use special attacks like GTL and Pauly D’s scratch attack to clear out disrespecting clowns on the dance floor and get skanks back to the hot tub.

Source: College Humor

Frank West Returns in Dead Rising 2: Case West DLC (Trailer)

Dave Oshry — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:16:25 +0000

It’s no secret that Dead Rising 2: Case Zero was a huge success. (It’s already sold over 500,000 copies) Well, hot on the heels of an epic prologue, comes what looks to be an even more epic epilogue. Players will once again team up with photojournalist Frank West to help clear Chuck Greene’s name at the end of Dead Rising 2. Way to spoil the ending of DR 2 Capcom!!

Check out the teaser trailer for this 360 exclusive below:

Talk about co-op!! I think it’s safe to say that Dead Rising 2: Case West will be available (for 360 only) sometime shortly after the release of Dead Rising 2.

Also be sure to check out the Ripten Review of Case Zero!!

Ripten Review: R.U.S.E. (PC)

Bryce Wilson — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:50:06 +0000

RTS games have a long and bland history of being, “get the biggest army, destroy enemy base, repeat.” Some games try and change that, deviating from their perfect formula (Good job EA…), and end up ruining the game. Well Eugen Systems have unleashed their game of deceit upon worldwide audiences and introduced something new to the mix, and it might just be good enough to win everyone over.

R.U.S.E. is based on information warfare. For those of you not in the know, information warfare revolves around intelligence, trickery, and a bunch of other ways to trick the enemy into thinking you’re doing one thing whilst you do the other. Kind of like when you’re browsing porn, then your Mom walks in so you quickly Alt + Tab to another window. At your disposal is a bunch of different “RUSE’s”, each serving its own unique purpose and having its own unique tactical appeal. For example; “Blitzkrieg” allows your units to move quicker, and is perfect for being used to hunt down and harass enemy scouts, supply trucks and recon units. “Radio Silence” hides your units to the enemy, and I often use it to hide a huge army of tanks, then attack the enemy before they even know the tanks are there.

These cards can be used in combination with each other, offering a very in-depth system that players can really use to tailor their strategies and game play. For example, if you were building an invisible tank base, then spamming tanks to flood your enemy, you would use “Camouflage Nets” to hide your building, and “Radio Silence” to hide the deluge of tanks that are soon to follow. Many games can be won or lost through proper use of these cards, and it’s quite a fresh and simple solution to an otherwise jaded and repetitive genre.

Unfortunately the R.U.S.E. cards are basically the games only real draw point. There is incorporation for the Playstation Move motion controller, however I played the game on PC and as such my review is based on that platform. Included in the game is a Campaign which is a hoot to play and really gives you something new to do when you get bored of crushing people on the online component. There is also a fun set of “instant action” type missions that allow you to earn bonus ranking points to level up with. Coupled with a bustling online multiplayer community, the game is quite good value for the money and will easily give you hours of game play. Throughout the two betas, and now the full release, I’ve clocked up 190 hours of game play.

Unlike conventional RTS games, the maps of R.U.S.E. are broken into various sectors in order to separate the effectiveness of R.U.S.E. cards and conflicts. That being said, this game contains some of the best unit control I have ever seen. By scrolling right out you can view the map as a table, where your units appear as tall stacks. It all feels very much like a war room that you see in a conventional film, but the control is brilliant. It is also possible to manage your active R.U.S.E. cards and to just oversee the whole battle and to crush the enemy. Whether zoomed right out, or down to the ground, the graphics of R.U.S.E. are quite impressive and the battles look brilliant right down at ground level.

The impressive scalable graphics engine is also complemented by a nice sound mix, and the various languages for different nations really compliments the game and adds a nice realistic feel. The menus are simple, intuitive and let you get straight into the action, and this is something I really liked.

Although it has it’s good points, certain parts of the game feel extremely unbalanced. The German units are too strong, although they do cost the most out of any nation. Italy can rush tanks too early (My preferred strategy), and most of the game comes down to spamming the most units and catching your opponent off guard. Eugen is currently working on a patch, although details are scarce. More R.U.S.E.’s would have been good, instead of a mere 8, however Eugen explained that they weren’t balanced or counter-able (i.e.: Radio Silence is countered by Spy etc.)

R.U.S.E. is a good, fresh and new take on the RTS genre. I enjoy it even after so many games, because there are still new strategies and ideas being formulated everyday by a fresh and active community. If you’re bored of Starcraft 2, or any other RTS game, R.U.S.E. is definitely worth checking out.

Here’s The Rundown:

+ Fresh new take on it’s genre
+ Great game from Eugen after nearly 4 years
- Not enough depth in the concept
- Germany is overpowered
- More R.U.S.E.’s would’ve been great

Alien Swarm was developed by Eugen Systems and was published by Ubisoft for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game released in the United States on the 7th of September 2010 with a retail price of 49.99. This copy was purchased by the reviwer. The game was played for around 180 hours in multiplayer. Specs of the PC used are as follows: AMD Phenom X4 955 @ 3.60 Ghz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, HIS 5750 in CrossFire with another HIS 5750 and Windows 7 64 Bit.

Natal Pre-Order Date Revealed By Major UK Retailer

Harry Slater — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:32:27 +0000

Major UK retailer “Game” has announced it’ll be taking pre-orders of Natal from the 13th of June, which is coincidentally the date of Microsoft’s Natal press conference at E3. Actually, that’s probably not a coincidence.

The retail chain released the information on a new page of its website dedicated to the technology. There’s no news yet as to how much Natal will cost, what it will actually be called, or when it’ll be coming out — but no doubt we’ll find out all that and more at the press conference.

All we can say for sure right now is that Natal, or whatever it’s called, will be out towards the end of the year.

[Source: CVG via Eurogamer]

Top 9 Things Gamers Learned in 2009

Jonathan Zungre — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:44:51 +0000

2009 is over, but before we buy our first game of 2010, lets look back and remember the top 9 things gamers learned in 2009. 2009 was a year of shifting: Shifting the tide of the console war, shifting where we usually play our games, shifting release dates and shifting sales numbers. But what shifts were the most important? Click to find out.

1. The PS3 Ain’t Going Down Without a Fight.

I’m sure last January, Sony top dog Jack Trenton was training in the mountains of Russia with Rocky, because if gaming business is a boxing match with Ivan Drago, the battered PS3 KO’d the competition in 2009. PS3 exclusives Killzone 2, Infamous, Demon’s Souls and Uncharted 2 all received critical praise, with the later two winning multiple game of the year awards and the PS3′s price cut to 300 dollars caused sales of the console to spike to 300%. They may not have won the next gen championship yet but, just like Rocky, they took some shots but came back with a fury this round.

2. We’re Just Not in Love with Nintendo Anymore, and it’s Them Not Us.

Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata was quoted in saying, “The Wii has stalled…and the mood has chilled.” Wii sales were down 40% last year and the DS is slowly losing ground to the iPhone, but more importantly many gamers just don’t feel the warm fuzzies for Nintendo’s innovative experiences anymore. Many gamers would be quick to blame it on the lack of first party cash cows, but with a new Punchout, Zelda and Mario game released in 2009, maybe that’s not the case. Maybe we’re tired of waggling or hopping on Goombas. Maybe we’re just tired of Nintendo.

3. Good Voice Acting Helps.

Jack Black rocked as Eddie Riggs and Mark Hamill’s reprisal of the Joker stole Batman: Arkham Asylum’s show. The most impressive acting of the year may have been from Claudia Black’s Zoe and Emily Rose’s’ Elana in Uncharted 2 which made us feel like Brad Pitt trying to decide between Agenlina Jolie and Jennifer Anniston. Add that to the convincing voice acting that always comes from Grand Theft Auto and Bioware games and 2009 was possibly gaming’s best year for acting performances.

4. Everybody wants to Sense Our Motion.

It strikes me as funny that everyone’s so hot on motion sensing technology for gamers. It’s not like gamers are known for their movement. Does everyone realize that with the announcement of Project Natal, the new light wand for the Playstation Eye and the Wii Motion Plus we are inching closer to having to get off our asses? Kiss those all night gaming binges good bye, suckers, no one wants to play Wii-tennis or talk to Milo at 4am.

5. Everything Ends.

Midway, Pandemic, Grin, Eidos. The list of of companies that either locked their doors or were bought by another company reads like names of dead characters at the end of a slasher movie. Companies like Sega, Sony, Microsoft, 2K were among those to lay off hundreds of workers and game sales were generally down for the entire year compared to 2008. We thought Video Games were recession proof and we were wrong.

6. Downloadable Content is the Future. And Was Most of 2009.

The DSi and PSP Go were released with a heavy emphasis on downloadable games, with PSP Go even eschewing the UMD discs Sony created for the original PSP. Grand Theft Auto 4 and Fallout 3 convinced us to stop trading in our games to Gamestop by releasing engaging DLC like the Lost and the Damned and Broken Steel. PS3′s Flower and the Xbox 360′s Shadow Complex were critically acclaimed download exclusives. I even bought a Bioshock 2 shirt for my Avatar. I spent real money on a shirt that doesn’t exist, because I liked the way it fit. DLC was one of the biggest trends of 2009 and the clearest look at what the next “next gen” will look like.

7. Everyone’s afraid of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The hot witch from Bayonetta, a Big Daddy and even the Splinter Cell himself all hightailed it away from Soap and Price this holiday season. What does it mean for so many games to be unprecedentedly releasing in January, February and March? It means they’re adopting a more movie-like release plan, trying less to cram all the best games into one season and more to space their games so they can own a week where gamers will have cash to spend. And that there’s no reason to believe that Q1 2010 won’t be a great time to release a game. We’ll all still be playing.

8. You Don’t Have to Do Something New. You Just Have to Do Something Well.

The best selling and most critically acclaimed games of 2009, and of most years, are sequels who have a formula that they’ve polished. Modern Warfare 2, the best selling game of the year, and Uncharted 2, the most critically acclaimed game of year are great examples of this. Meanwhile, the genre-blending, refreshingly written Brutal Legend and the super innovative Scribblenauts were mostly left out in the cold in 2009 when it came to writer’s pens and gamer’s wallets. Sure new games make mistakes, but shouldn’t critics, if not gamers, be a little more responsive to games that take risks?

9. Successful Games Can Pop Up in Unsuspected Places.

Zynga, the company that makes Mafia Wars and Farmville, have stated that 12 million people play their games over Facebook and Myspace. That’s like World of Warcraft numbers, many of which would have never played a game otherwise. The iPhone and iPod touch have sold over 30 million units and use the slickness of the app store to get games into the hands of consumers that would never pick up a wii-mote (as dignified as that sounds.) And lets not forget the impressive indy games that are thriving on the Internet and and stealing the show at GDC. Gaming wasn’t only based on the big three’s efforts in 2009 and hopefully 2010 will be the year that games are played by more people than ever before.

Words: Jon, Pictures: Chad

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles DSi

Sean Mitchuson — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:19:05 +0000

Famitsu is reporting that on January 29th there will be a special edition DSi to go along with the release of the new game titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time.

This nicely designed DSi will come with the game in which it’s themed. There isn’t a price listed yet, but I’m sure it won’t be cheap. The new DS game will link with the Wii title of the same name. The selling point for me on this game is the online playability. You can link up to four players either locally or online over the world. The game itself is coming with a system similar to the translator found in Final Fantasy XI that can help with simple phrases, but just like in FFXI I’m sure people will create new phrases that everyone understands.

I like the look of this special edition DSi, but I really don’t go in for things like this nor do I have the money, but if someone would like to buy me one I would be more than willing to use it.

Source: Famitsu

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom New Wii Screens, Video of Gold Lightan

Sean Mitchuson — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:10:09 +0000

Every morning I go over to Famitsu to see if there is anything in Japanese that you guys may or may not be interested in. Today I found out more information for you guys about the upcoming Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom game. Inside is video and information on one of the “bigger” characters going to fisticuffs in game.

Far be it for me to be the one to judge what characters get put into fighting games. I enjoyed playing Juggernaut in the Marvel fighting game. I like playing Rogue in the X-men Vs. Street Fighter game. This guy in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, though, it just doesn’t seem fair.

Gold Lightan was the main robot character in a popular children’s anime in Japan from 1981 to 1982. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that popular, but there are a lot of cartoons in Japan — not all of them can be a big hit. I had no idea about the story of this Gold Lightan character so I dug up some info on Wikipedia about him.

The story is about a little boy named Hiro who accidentally found a gold lighter which turned out to be the giant Golden Warrior Gold Lightan with the mission to save the earth from every invasion of King Ibalda. Gold Lightan joined forces with his robot teammates to ruin the plots of King Ibalda and destroyed invading alien robots by using his surpassing hands and leg strikes. Hiro, the boy, also founded a group called the “One Pack Rangers” with his friends.

Yeah the kid fights a lighter and hes a magical giant robot that helps save the day. Oh and this is my favorite part. “Usually the robot ends a battle with a trademark golden hand stab move which drives a hand strike cutting the enemy robots body, pulling out and smashing the heartbox energy device.” – Wikipedia

Yep, he rips the heartbox from the chest of the evil robots. It doesn’t say if he eats it or shows it to them while it still mechanically beats before they die or explode, but he’s brutal to say the least. Now, Gold Lightan can be seen giving a beat down to Morrigan and Chun-li. For balance issues he isn’t allowed to have a teammate, but when you watch the video it still doesn’t seem fair.

Also, the Wii release is getting a lot of extra mini games to enjoy when you are tired of being beat up by a giant golden lighter. One of the new mini games you can see at Famitsu stars Gold Lightan himself as you make his body shiny and gold, the more you clean him the more points you get. The next one involves Morrigan carrying off a poor soul higher and higher for more points before she, I assume, drops him. The last one looks like a button mashing mini game. You have to get Chun-li to kick as fast as she can to carve Ryu in a giant stone — what talent!

This comes out on Wii in Japan December 11th and I may have to buy a Wii just for this.

Source: Famitsu Wikipedia

Lord of Vermilion: Final Part – Strategy and Conclusion

Sean Mitchuson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:41:33 +0000

So I’ve discussed the game and the cards. Today I want to focus on PvP and my final thoughts on the game. I haven’t put near the amount of time some people have put into this game, so my theories may have some flaw to them, and I am far from a master at this game. This is really just a listing of what I’ve learned to do by being beat by the people I have played and using some of those tactics to beat other people.

Crystal Strategy

The first and simplest idea to winning is to just take out the other team’s arcane crystals. There are three of them on a PvP map and they are always in the same place. It seems simple enough but if their team enters the area of the crystal you are attacking, then you stop attacking it to focus on fighting them. This can, of course, slow you down, but if you have a stronger team it isn’t anything to worry about.

When I first started playing PvP, this is the only thought that came to my mind. My cards weren’t strong enough to be effective in battle, so I ran from crystal to crystal trying to lower their life bar before the enemy could take out my whole team. Now PvP match-ups are usually about four levels apart max, so at times I was playing people I had no chance of beating. This is how you can start to annoy the high level people.

As I stated last time, there are some monster cards that lower the power of arcane crystals much faster than any other cards. These are great to have on a team, and also terrible to have. They make your team slower than you could possibly imagine or want. Once you do get to a crystal, though, you’re set. There is a side strategy to using these cards and that is to take out the opponents search eye or shield generator which will give you some speed boosts, letting those slow but dangerous monsters get to the crystals much faster.

Opponent Destruction Strategy

This is the next simple-but-not-as-easy way to win the battle: if you fight and take out the other team completely, their life bar will go down a decent amount. You have to defeat the whole team, though, or this doesn’t do as much good. This really works well for people who have leveled up their cards a bit and have a team that is strong against that particular opponent. I have tried using this strat a few times but always seem to lose out in the end. There is something about this I’m doing wrong and I need to spend a bit more time figuring out how to perfect it.

What really gets me about this method of winning is the monster card’s strength and weakness to certain attacks. If, say, you do dark damage, you are usually weak to light damage. So obviously, if you’re team is solely dark damage monsters and the other is light, it could be a draw, but if they aren’t light then you’re damage won’t be as effective and theirs will work better. There are also cards that can either change your strength, damage, or your weakness thus causing you serious headaches.

“Lock Out” Strategy

This is something new I’m working on. It has not been used on me to its fullest yet in a match, but I used it on someone to achieve a sneaky victory. In the PvP field, there are three gates your team can come through if you lose all teammates or need a quick health recharge. If one is broken by the other team, it can’t be used until you spend time standing in front of it to fix it.

The idea is if you break all three gates down, and then proceed to either attack the other team or work on crystals, they will have no choice than to hurry and fix their gates, or try and take you out to get some time to repair their gates. The gates do repair themselves but very, very slowly. I have taken out all three gates on someone before and then went to the furthest crystal from them and cleaned house. This strat doesn’t work well if their team moves faster than yours, though, so it’s a bit tricky.

Conclusion

Well, that is about all there is to Lord of Vermilion so far. It’s a fun card game with some great card art. You don’t have to get every card in the whole game to have fun, and you don’t have to have many cards to start. If you are in Japan for a length of time and feel like trying it out, go for it — you really don’t need too high a Japanese language skill to play it, and even if you have trouble, the person sitting next to you may give you some simple tips for playing. I recently upgraded from the weak plastic card holders to stronger stuff because some of the more serious players rock their cards pretty hard while combating, and I think I’m almost at their level. We’ll see, though.