Archive - 2009

GamingShogun E3 09 First-Look: Gearbox Software’s Borderlands

2009/06/03
E3, Previews


On day one of E3 2009 we had the chance to attend a behind closed door demo of Gearbox’s shoot slash RPG title Borderlands. The demo was presented by Gearbox’s own President Randy Pitchford and boy was he hyped about this title.

The demo started out with the Gearbox team giving us a glimpse of the 4 player co-cop and the different classes that fit each character. (cont)
Each character will have his own style.  There is your classic rambo bezerker guy, a stealthy female, and a sniper.  Unfortunately we were not given a glimpse of any of the other character class types.  As you progress in the game you gain levels and talent points which you can spend in three talent trees.  Each tree offering different buffs for your character.

The world of Borderlands is a wasteland filled with quest hubs scattered around giving you tons of chances to explore everywhere.  Don’t feel like exploring well you are in luck as there are over 160 missions in the game to do.  You can spend time in the open world doing missions and collecting the hundreds of weapon types or you can join up with friends to try some of the instanced missions.  From what I saw the world was very alive with a cast of characters and there was always something you could be doing.

Loot is a big deal in Borderlands and it is labeled in your very familiar grey, green, blue, and epic purple styles for the value of the item.  Randy Pitchford fully admitted that he is a lover of World Of Warcraft and wanted to incorporate things he loved about the game but wanted to see in a shooter.  The loot system was very easy to follow along with and the amount of items to collect is simply huge

The unique part of Borderlands is that your characters are persistent  in the world.  You can take them into any mission and any instance no matter what level.  Feel like helping out a friend who is of lower level?  You can hop right in and while you may not gain experience you certainly can use the time to collect loot you have never seen before.

Borderlands created a bit of a tornado recently by doing an overhaul to the graphic system and some people calling it ‘cel shaded’.  I can tell you that I really did not see any likeness to other cel shaders out there and the environment made you feel like you were fighting your way through a wasteland.

We would like to thanks the fine folks at 2K and Gearbox for letting us sit in on this demo and be sure to check out Borderlands as it releases this holiday season.

E3 2009 – Live Blog of Konami Press Conference

2009/06/03
Jerry Paxton
E3, News

At 2:55pm, tune-in to our coverage of Konami’s E3 2009 press conference courtesy of CoverItLive. This will be our second usage of the live blog system and we hope you enjoy the streaming coverage of the event. Also, feel free to post questions to the reporter on-hand during the show.

Our First Look At Post-Apocalyptic MMO Fallen Earth from E3 09

2009/06/03
E3, Previews


In our travels of the E3 2009 show floor we had a chance to sit down with Fallen Earth LLC’s upcoming apocalypse based MMO Fallen Earth. Our readers will remember that we recently did a Q&A with their product manager, Jessica Orr, and we were really looking foreword to checking out the game. Thankfully, we got our wish.

Fallen Earth is set in a post apocalyptic world using the real life area surrounding the Grand Canyon with huge surrounding areas to explore. (cont)
At launch you will only be able to explore a small fraction of the huge landscape but that area in itself is huge and can take several hours to walk from end to end.  At its core Fallen Earth is an ambitious MMO which seems to rely heavily on its faction based system and crafting.

Fallen Earth starts you out in a character creation mode with tons of customizing options and no skill points at the beginning.  As you move through the tutorial you learn how to loot, shoot, and other things needed to take off into the wasteland.  Once the tutorial ends you are treated to a video setting up the story of your character being a clone of someone who recently died and sent out to find the alpha clones by a mysterious woman.

The game is very faction based as you have different factions to align yourself with and can even mix and match your factions.  Who you choose to align yourself with can determine if one faction loves you or another faction really hates you.  Each faction has a specific role like those following anarchy or simple gypsy’s that roam the desert.

Fallen Earth is a classless system where you don’t need to fall under a certain role.  Sure you can go out and farm nodes or scavenger items for a few hours and tat will yield great success.  Feel like going out and just exploring where that telephone wire leads?  You may just find yourself winding up in a science bunker or in a small town used as a quest hub.  There is literally hours and hours of exploring to do if you want to stray off the story path.

Crafting is a huge part of Fallen Earth and in my opinion offers the uniqueness that will set it apart from other MMO’s.  Everything in the game is crafted from mounts to weapons and can be done so even while questing.  Want to build a major item but don’t want to sit and wait for it to finish?  Oh you can do that as well as log off the game and the item will still progress.  With such a large amount of things that needs to be crafted by the player this will really help in keeping the flow going.

Levels in Fallen Earth are earned by doing the tried and true questing or killing things as you explore.  You have a certain amount of skill points you gain as you progress and can put them in tons of categories.  If you want to be a better shot you better put some points in that skill or your shots may suffer a bit.  From our first look at the game this system could be a bit confusing to new players as there are a lot of options for your skill sets, bordering on overload.

In the end I was pleased by the progress of the game and am very glad to hear that it is doing well in its closed beta.  When asked for a release date the developers told us that no official date has been set but may be announced soon.  Pricing will also fall in line with other MMO’s but no set pricing plan has been announced yet.  They are currently accepting applications for the closed beta at their website and we would like to once again thank the fine folks behind the game for showing it off to us.

E3 2009 First Look at 2K’s Bioshock 2 Multiplayer

2009/06/02
E3, Previews


One of the highlight’s of the first day of E3 was the opportunity to view a behind closed doors presentation of Bioshock’s 2 multiplayer thanks to our friends at 2K Marin.

For those that are in the dark about Bioshock 2 lets give you little rundown. Bioshock 2 takes you back into rapture as a brand new character. You are the first ever Big Daddy (cont)
and you are sent out to roam the streets of Rapture. You still have little sisters on your side and the uber scary Big Sister is out to hunt you down. In our presentation we were shown an extended trailer however that is not the big news here.

The big news is that 2K Marin has signed on Unreal developers Digital Extremes to create a whole new multiplayer experience for the game. Not only that but the game is a totally different story and is in fact a prequel to the original Bioshock. Bioshock 2’s multiplayer stars Jacob Norse and takes place in the time when Rapture is being built. You sign on to join Sinclair Solutions who is tasked with building elements of the city and you are then set out to battle in it.

One cool feature about the multiplayer is that you have your own apartment where you can change out your plasmids and access your bathosphere to launch games. The apartment is totally optional but adds a great feel to the story. Launching of games can be done right from the menus per the producers at Digital Extremes.

Lets get to the action shall we? We got a look at one of the maps which was the old theater from the original Bioshock but in much better condition. There are going to be many weapons to choose from however we were only shown the pistol, shotgun, and melee weapons. Multiplayer has a cool feature where you do not need to equip a melee like you would in the single player. Instead it is a single button press to hit with a crowbar smash. Plasmids are ever present and is used in a one two punch combo with your weapons. Off hand used to fire a ignition plasmid or frost plasmids while you then fire off some shots with your pistol. Very smooth action and the characters actually emoted when you did something good or bad furthering the immersion of the world.

The environments can be used to break through grates and sneak up on your opponents or find an easier way to the turrets. Did you say turrets Mr. Jester? Oh yes i did indeed. You see there are rocket and gun turrets hidden in the area and with your handy dandy hacking tool (no pipe mini game!) you can turn the tide by setting one of these weapons of destruction on your opponents. What other tricks does Digital Extremes have up its sleeve? Well what would Bioshock be without a Big Daddy thrown into the mix. There are random drops that can turn you into a Big Daddy setting you loose with the railgun and other unannounced weapons. the Big Daddy is not indestructible though and really becomes a target on the map.

Bioshock 2’s multiplayer offers 5v5 games with death match, team death match, and one other unannounced game type. I think Digital Extremes developing the multiplayer game adds a whole different level of cool to Bioshock 2. Bioshock 2 is set to release November 3rd in North America and October 30th in Europe so prepare to get back into Rapture.

Archived E3 2009 Microsoft Press Conference

2009/06/02
Jerry Paxton
E3, News


If you were not lucky enough to catch the LIVE feeds of the big E3 09 press conferences do not worry. Aside from our continuing E3 coverage you can check out the full Microsoft presser below. The Milo demo at the end of their Project Natal stuff is incredible.

GamingShogun Personal Log 3 – E3 2009 Day One Completed

2009/06/02
Jerry Paxton
Articles, E3


So this is the end of E3 2009: Day One. At least, officially-speaking. We all know that there has been a flurry of activity here over the last couple of days. I just wanted to keep you guys up on current events as well as the coverage we have for you.

Due to the intense schedule I have our reporters chewing on, there has not been a lot of time to post our interview and preview articles. We are tirelessly working through the wee hours to bring you much of the incredible stuff we saw today.

In the meantime, be sure to keep up on all the action at my official Twitter account. Also, check out TheJester’s Twitter account for his take on the day’s events. There are plenty of TwitPics to enjoy as well!
-GS

E3 2009 Extended Trailer For Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell Conviction

2009/06/02
E3, News

One of my favorite things about the Microsoft press event was the re-introduction of Splinter Cell Conviction. Sam Fisher is back and you are not really sure what side of the fence he is playing on. Check out the extended trailer below and walk that fine line when it releases later this year for the Xbox 360.

A Look at Mass Effect 2 from Electronic Arts E3 2009 Booth

2009/06/02
Jerry Paxton
E3, Previews


Thanks to the EA press folks today who granted the old GamingShogun and his cohorts EA Media badges. You see, in all my scheduling I forgot to book anything with EA. Massive doh!

Anyhow, once we got into the EA Media status, we got a behind closed-doors look at the upcoming RPG epic, Mass Effect 2. The demo we were shown featured a few different environments as well as showed off a bit of the game’s new features.

First thing we learned was that Commander Shepard is still alive. At least, for now, but more on that later. It seems that some unknown force is abducting human beings all over the known galaxy and Shepard has been tasked with finding out who… (cont.)
is responsible. So Shepard has to build up a new team to handle this mission which will find him aligning with a pro-human extremist group with some leads into the matter. From the way the developer spoke, it seems that the majority of the game is spent going from planet to planet and building this team.

Then EA showed us a new way to interact with others. Resembling a quick-time event, in some dialogue sequences a button will flash in the lower-left corner of the screen and upon clicking it, Shepard will effect some ‘physical justice’ on whomever he is talking to. This could be a simple shove or something as extreme as pushing a character off a ledge to their deaths (they showed this). All of these actions seem to be negative choices, which fits in with the darker tone of the game. They also showed Shepard and his crew (two unknown individuals) attempting to recruit this renown assassin named Thane.

Thankfully, on the way to Thane they encountered multiple new enemies that we had not seen in the previous game, as well as a few we had… The combat looks a ton more streamlined and is definitely touching more on the line of a shooter. Thankfully they keep their tactical aspect by allowing you to stack-up actions against multiple foes and then returning to real-time to watch them play out. Overall this looks to be a welcome combat upgrade.

The final thing thing they showed us was a ‘spoiler’, SO DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT if you do not want to know it….

The final sequence illustrated the fact that Shepard does not have to survive this game in order to complete it… In this spoiler, the Normandy was shown being destroyed and Shepard made a series of decisions leading to his demise. If this happens, your character will not be allowed to continue him and his stats on to Mass Effect 3…. You have been warned.

Microsoft E3 2009 Presser Completed, Up Next is EA at 2pm pt

2009/06/01
Jerry Paxton
E3, News


Microsoft really had some strong announcements this time around. We learned not only about the announcements of Halo: Reach, Metal Gear: Rising, Left 4 Dead 2, and Project Natal (Milo demo was interesting), but we also learned that the Xbox LIVE system will be getting Facebook and Twitter functionality.

Also, we learned that Halo: ODST would be released come September 22nd and if you purchase it you would be eligible for the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta when that project is ready. In other game news, Final Fantasy XIII will also be coming to the Xbox 360.

While Microsoft saved their Project Natal announcement for the end, I have been a big fan of Halo for a while and thought that and the L4D2 announcement were more exciting. Overall, I would give Microsoft a big two thumbs-up for their presser this year. It was entertaining as well as showed a lot of variety of products off.

Stay-tuned to our LIVE coverage of Electronic Art’s press conference at 2PM, pt.