Posted 7/26/2008 at 9:34 PMBy GamingShogun

Well, we had our day at Comic Con... Boy, was it packed. Reminded me of the 'old' E3. And...how messy it was to wade through crowds of people, some not with best personal hygiene. By the end of the day I was praising E3 for just inviting media - it kept the spectator slowing to a minimum, but I digress...

We will be posting full impressions of what we saw tomorrow once all our data is collated, but here is a brief overview of the day:

We started the day off nice and early, and hit the SOE booth to check out DC Universe Online. The game had a pretty environmental as well as character detailing, and combat was interesting in that it was very fluid. There was no auto-attack to speak of, but instead, mouse clicks for light and heavy attacks. Flight was also very fluid as was the transition between flying and walking...

Stargate Worlds was just incredible. I can best describe it as a mix of old-school and new-school RPG'ing. The combat is all made of dice rolls taking place 'inside the machine', similar to the original EverQuest. Special attacks can also be triggered, but have a recharge time. The game's unique feature when compared to other MMOs out there looks to be its 'cover system', but more on that tomorrow...

The Office panel was a bust - I am sorry to anyone who tuned in to find nothing. Unfortunately, the internet connection at the center was utter nonsense, and posting anything was impossible.

The Star Wars online trading card game looked like an awesome take on the genre, with the base system coming from Legends of Norrath spruced up with all the Star Wars graphical goodies you would expect from those extremely talented graphic artists, but again, more on that tomorrow!

The last thing we took a look at was BitDefender's GameSafe anti-virus/spam/phishing suite. Designed specifically to run with a VERY minimal memory footprint so it wont slow down your gaming experience, it looks to be intriguing and we will be reviewing a copy shortly to put it to the test.

Well, that was it! The day was long, arduous, and I expect to have all of our impressions and hands-on experiences up in the morrow.

(Continue reading 'Comic Con 2008 - End of Day Impressions'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 2:02 PMBy MondoPest

According to the Daily Variety, Legendary Pictures is now on-board to co-finance and produce the still in pre-production Gears of War film. In order to maintain story integrity and faithfulness to the universe created in the game, Cliff Bleszinski is acting as Executive Producer on the picture. Len Wiseman is set to direct. No star has been mentioned yet.

(Continue reading 'Gears of War Film Receives Funding'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 11:58 AMBy boothby

The talented folks at Spawn.com are giving away sets of two exclusive Halo figures created just for Comic Con. Just fill out the information page and click the 'Enter Contest' button. You can enter until 7/31/2008.

Official Contest Page

(Continue reading 'Comic Con 2008 - Exclusive Halo Figure Giveaway'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 10:02 AMBy MondoPest

The trailer for the upcoming movie, Punisher: War Zone, has been released. The movie is scheduled for a December 5th release and stars Ray Stevenson as the title role.

(Continue reading 'Comic Con 2008 - The Punisher War Zone Trailer'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 9:39 AMBy MondoPest

Two posters for the upcoming Douglas Aarniokoski flick, Red Sonja, were shown today at Comic Con. One was hanging about the expo and the other was an MTV exclusive. Unfortunately, I am not sold of Rose McGowan playing Sonja, I never thought of her as a warrior chick really. Even Planet Terror was too campy to take her seriously. While some may mock, Howard's Red Sonja is a bad ass and VERY athletically able.

(Continue reading 'Comic Con 2008 - Red Sonja Posters'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 9:15 AMBy MondoPest

SUBSONIC, a French peripheral maker, is developing and marketing a device they call the 'laser sword' for use in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on the Nintendo Wii. Personally, we think it just looks too hilarious to attempt to try out. We will leave it to you to come up with your own explanations. But just think what the first thing many people will do once the vibration function starts rumbling...

(Continue reading 'SUBSONIC Laser Sword Raises too Many Questions'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 9:10 AMBy MondoPest

Matrix Games' World War II strategy title, World War II: Road to Victory, has been released and is now on sale. The game features hex-based gameplay, a multitude of unit types, and three different start dates for its scenarios (1939, 1940, and 1941).

Game Site

Official Release:
Matrix Games (www.matrixgames.com) and IQ Software (www.worldwar2.pl) are pleased to announce the release of World War II: Road to Victory! Now gamers can wage World War II in Europe from the front lines in France and Russia to the deserts of North Africa and the airfields and convoys of Britain in a riveting turn-based grand strategy format.

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “This debut release from new developer IQ Software delivers great gameplay and historical depth in a classic hex-based and turn-based grand strategy format. World War II: Road to Victory beautifully combines highly replayable game mechanics with ease of use to make a great wargame for beginners and advanced players alike.”

(Continue reading 'World War II: Road to Victory Launched'...)

Posted 7/25/2008 at 8:57 AMBy MondoPest

Deep Silver and Blue Monkey Software have announced that the classic game 'The Humans' will be brought into the current-gen of gaming on the PC, DS, and Xbox 360 in the fourth quarter of this year. For those who do not recall, in The Humans, it was the player's job to guide a group of early humans though a series of obstacles.

Official Release:
'The Humans' is back! The legendary puzzle game loved by millions of players all over the world is returning in a brand-new version for PC and Nintendo DS™! Deep Silver, the games label of Koch Media, a leading producer and distributor of digital entertainment products, and the developer Blue Monkey Software Inc. today announce the release of this title. Koch Media owns the worldwide publishing rights.

Once upon a prehistoric time: the player's mission is to guide The Humans to help them solve the quests that they are set at the beginning of each of the puzzle festooned levels. To do this, the people must all pull together; the player must plan ahead carefully. Assign tasks to The Humans in your tribe. Guide The Humans using strategy and guile in order to avoid the deadly hazards and co-inhabitants of The Humans world. Add to the perils a race against the clock and this imaginative puzzle game will entertain and bemuse the strategist in the player.

(Continue reading 'The Humans Are Back'...)

Posted 7/24/2008 at 8:53 PMBy GamingShogun

According to today's Bungie.net announcement, they will not be making any game announcements at Comic Con or PAX this year. Instead, we are left with the cryptic time frame of 'when the time is right'. I just wish Microsoft had not believe Final Fantasy to be a bigger announcement during their presser. Something inside me says that far more gamers are caring about the Halo announcement that almost was.

'For the record, we have no plans to make any big announcements or huge reveals at PAX this year. While we will have some Halo 3 multiplayer stuff for you to check out, this is not going to be the 'big announcement' many of our fans are clamoring for. Rest assured that when the time is right, we will be making announcements and talking about the stuff we're currently working on. At the moment we do have three distinct projects underway within Bungie - some familiar, some not. Some on a closer horizon, some quite far off.'

(Continue reading 'Bungie Says No Announcement at PAX'...)

Posted 7/24/2008 at 4:26 PMBy MondoPest

The Good: Incredible texture scale (1m/pixel) and realism.
The Bad: The autogen is occasionally spotty.

Summary: Flight1's Ground Environment X is such a good scenery add-on, we think Microsoft Games should purchase it from them for a handsome sum of cash to make it standard.

(Continue reading 'Ground Environment X - USA and Canada Review'...)

Posted 7/24/2008 at 1:24 PMBy MondoPest

**UPDATE: We have solved this puzzle and posted the spoiler in the Live Updates section after the break.

Looks like a new viral marketing campaign has begun. We received a cryptic email stating the following:

If someone was watching us, what would they see?
Seek the Six.
70.87.154.219

Upon going to the site, we were visited by a camera looking back at us followed by what appears to be a sort of mini-game which we have just begun to look at.

The domain is registered to someone at Deep-Focus.com, a marketing company, so it is safe to assume this is the beginning of a viral campaign just in time for Comic Con. Enjoy!

(Continue reading 'Comic Con 2008 - Seek the Six Viral Marketing Begins'...)