Sony Online Entertainment has revealed that Circe will be joining the cast of villains in their upcoming MMO, DC Universe Online. Circe commanded sirens who lured men to their doom on the high seas. DCUO will be released in the first quarter of 2011 on the PlayStation 3 and Windows PC platforms.
Checkout the new screenshots of Circe, After the Break!
SEGA and The Creative Assembly have released some new screenshots for their upcoming real-time strategy title, Shogun 2: Total War. Due out next year, exclusively on Windows PCs, Shogun 2: Total War promises better visuals and gameplay options over its predecessors.
Checkout the new screenshots, After the Break!
Blizzard Entertainment has sent out a reminder announcement that their yearly gaming event, BlizzCon, begins this Friday in Anaheim, CA. The sold-out event will run for two days and feature several panels and presentations regarding the game companies IPs. Jay Mohr is returning as the MC and Tenacious D will be closing the event on Saturday evening.
‘We look forward to providing a truly entertaining and informative convention experience to all attendees, as well as those joining us remotely from around the world,’ said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. ‘BlizzCon offers a great opportunity for us to meet our players and share the latest news about Blizzard games with them, and with the help of Tenacious D, we’re sure this year’s show will be one the audience will never forget.’
The GamingShogun crew will be heading to the gaming event to bring you interesting news from around the show floor, so stay-tuned!
Enslaved is a world full of heartache and struggle as most of mankind has been wiped out by an ever-evolving race of robots. The game starts with the main character in the story ‘Monkey’ locked inside a slave ship where he runs into his future counterpart ‘Trip’ as she sets her plans into motion. As you make your way through the game Monkey, being the big brute that he is, ends up working side by side with Trip in one of the better ‘buddy cop’ tales to reach video game shelves in quite some time. Without going too much the storyline between our two ‘heroes’ leaves the player wanting more at each step of the game. The beauty with the story of Enslaved is there are very few characters in the game that could potentially lead to story overflow. Alex Garland (28 Days later) writes a story that keeps you engaged in the small cast of characters through the entire game and keeps the player focused on the relationships between each one.
GAMEPLAY:
Enslaved puts the player in the role of Monkey which players like your typical third-person action game. Part shooter and part platformer Monkey can wield a pulse staff to bash his opponents or swing from buildings like an actual monkey. For novice players Enslaved is very easy to pick up and jump right in. The action starts right from the beginning in breathtaking fashion. Not since Uncharted 2 have I found myself slack jawed at what the situation the developers have put my character inn.
Monkey is able to swing from poles and climb various structures using handholds with the click of a button. Rapid fire platform jumping is the best thing to do when playing Enslaved as there are several scripted moments that can hurt those that are too slow. The acrobatics are really fun and fluid with little to no bugs. Throw in the amazing environments and you have some great fun ahead of you.
The fighting portions of Enslaved can get a bit repetitive at times. Enslaved is a true to the heart button masher that allows you to just demolish anything in your way. The twist is that your staff can also be used as a pulse cannon for some long range shooting if you have the ammo. Thankfully ammo is pretty plentiful around the world as are the orbs you need to upgrade your stats/weaponry. Enslaved boasts a robust upgrade system that can do things like increase your health or power up your staff attacks. Using the upgrade system is easy and can make Monkey a powerhouse to deal with. Also adding to the gameplay experience are a couple of sections where Monkey can use his ‘cloud’ which is pretty much a tron hover disc. While these levels were short, they offered some great fun. Watch out for the dog or rhino!
The enemies of Enslaved are pretty boring until you run into the larger boss-type robots. There are three or four types of robots that you will always run into and most of them have a weakness icon above your head. The weakness will tell you to attack that one first as it will result in a finishing move which you can sue to destroy the other opponents around you. Overall, gameplay is pretty simple and, while repetitive at times, fits great with the story. The only constant problem I found as with most third-person games is the camera, at times, can really hinder your view.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
Enslaved is beautiful and Ninja Theory should be taken out for a round of beers for their efforts. The landscapes are vast and the colors really make your mind think you are in a lost world full of struggle. Again, what it needs to be compared to is the cinematic quality of Uncharted 2. The in-game visuals match right up to the cut-scenes and were a pleasure to play through. I simply cannot tell you how beautiful this game is – a true work of art.
The sound in Enslaved matches well with the graphics. Most famous amongst the voice cast is Monkey, who is played by Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, King Kong). When you have a great story, bad voice acting can ruin the experience and, thankfully, that is not the case here. The entire cast is very solid in their performances. Ambient sounds and effects suffered from no type of bugs or artifacts and wrapped up the entire package with a nice little bow.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Enslaved is the sleeper hit of the fall season in the video game world. I was not expecting this game to be the smack to my brain that it was and was surprised the whole way. This one is no rental, run out and pick up a new copy of the game as soon as possible.
Atmosphere:
Though not immersive like the Tomb Raider games, the levels are well designed and are well rendered jungles and ruins. The cut scenes vary between motion comic and animated and all add to the feeling that you could be in a local arcade plunking tokens in and fighting your way through. The storyline is told during the cutscenes for the most part leaving you to concentrate on the action when you have control.
Gameplay/Controls:
I tried playing it with both the keyboard and the game pad and the game pad won hands down on both responsiveness and ease of control. The keyboard could be a little tricky and unresponsive when it came to diagonal jumps while the same sections are a breeze with the game pad. Shooting accuracy is better with the mouse but since that usually isn’t much of a concern the game pad seems by far the best choice. It is a standard Run/Jump/Shoot/Action setup with periodic items that give you bonuses and minuses on stats and weapon upgrades. Single player you get a spear at the beginning of the game which has unlimited throws so you will probably find yourself only changing to other weapons for mini-bosses and bosses or just for the fun of it.
Achievements:
Achievements are setup in three basic ways: speed, skill, and exploration. There are achievements for clearing levels or beating bosses in a certain amount of time, there are achievements for making certain jumps, shots, or puzzle completions a certain way and there are achievements for finding all of certain treasures or relics. Because all of these achievements can’t be completed at the same time it sets the game up for replayability at least a couple of times because while you can do the skill and exploration achievements at the same time, you can’t complete all the time ones if you do.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer is a lot of fun because completing puzzles and getting to treasures require teamwork. Each player plays one of the two main characters (in single player you just play one while the other periodically interacts in cut scenes) and that character has certain strengths and weaknesses. I won’t go into too much detail because finding these out is part of the fun but I will say sometimes clearing an obstacle requires one player to use a primary talent so the other player can complete the task. Achievements are rewarded to both players and should be a consideration when looting. It is possible for one player to horde most of the loot, which can bring out the competitive nature in some folks leaving one person to fight off the enemy while the other collects the loot. This can actually have a benefit because some achievements are based off of how many points are reached so if one player does most of the kill blows and collects most of the treasure then both players will get the achievements. The fact that there is so much teamwork involved in the game really made multiplayer tons of fun and very replayable.
Replay/Play Time/Cost:
Replay is a no-brainer on this title because the achievements are set up for a miniumum of two plays and multiplayer is so much fun. How long it takes to play through really depends on what achievements you try for and which control setup you choose. If you play on the game pad and go for speed it is only a few hours of play. If you play for skill and exploration and stick with the keyboard and have some problems with the jump it could take you quite a bit longer. Longest play time on a once through would probably be about 10 hours. The game will run you $14.99 from Steam or 1200 points for the XBox 360 so it is pretty cheap for a new title with built-in replay, even if some of the play throughs may be a bit short time-wise.
Last Call:
The game was made as a departure from the Tomb Raider series so if you can get past that and enjoy an isometric arcade game that just happens to have the same character name and take place in a similar environment as the Tomb Raider games then Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a great play at a good price.
*DISCLOSURE: A copy of this game was sent to us for the purpose of this review.
Capcom has released the Psychopath theme pack for their new zombie-killing epic, Dead Rising 2. The psychopath pack features and ‘insane’ new look as well as new zombie-killing weapons such as cleavers. The pack retails for 160 Microsoft Points on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace and $1.99 on the PlayStation Network.
Checkout the theme pack trailer below!
Electronic Arts has released their new shooter, Medal of Honor, as well as its official launch trailer. The game puts players into the shoes of a special ‘Tier 1’ soldier over several levels of play promising a highly realistic experience.
The first night we arrived through the front gates on opening night and media night so there was definite excitement in the air as a spatter of monsters, from the petite weaving through the crowd to the stiltwalkers towering above, worked the crowd outside the park’s opening arch and a large screen broadcast images of some of the 20 years of icons we could expect to see inside. The fog machines were fired up, the soundtrack of screams were rolling and in the distance chainsaws revved. It was time for some Halloween Horror Nights.
Author’s Note: When doing this review the reviewers ran into a strict policy of no photography of the mazes and shows. As a result most pictures will be of the street scare zones or of maze signs.
*All images in this article courtesy of IsItOctoberYet?
Mazes:
Catacombs:Black Death Rising
In 1534 an outbreak of the Black Death spread through Paris and Marseilles and a small group of doctors quarantined the infected in catacombs where they turned and waited until the day they would be unsealed and released upon those who dared enter. Trying to be historically accurate while terrifying guests the Catacombs were beautiful in their richly and disturbingly accurate detail. From piled-up skulls to The Plague Doctors who were famous for their carrion beak masks (think Spy Vs. Spy, it was actually a primitive gas mask) this maze was a creepy, claustophobic journey underground with sporatic signs telling true facts of the catacombs and plague conditions. It was a little like climbing into woodcarvings and drawings of the time and it was not a pleasant time to be alive, or undead. Makeup and props put a lot of love and care into the details in this maze so that even those who didn’t scream were in awe of the sights.
Hades:The Gates Of Ruin
Based on creatures of mythology, this maze was alive with demons and detail. In one room you walk amongst pillars where statues stand in strange poses all about the room and if you are unlucky enough you may see their snake-haired creator. In another maze of corridors you turn down one path to find strobe effects disorienting you while your path is blocked by a tall figure with the head of a bull. On your journey through you may see a few characters you hadn’t heard of before but they will be memorable from then on.
Horror Nights:The Hallow’d Past
This maze is a real treat to repeat visitors and newcomers alike. Designed mostly as a prop warehouse with a few memorable scenes recreated, you walk past some of the best props from the last 20 years while above you hang the banners for each season. Seeing a ‘thing’ from The Thing maze and the dummies from Dead Silence particularly brought back memories and seeing some scenes recreated from years I missed were wonderful. There were a few scares set up in this maze but it is mostly about nostalgia and showing some of the wonders you have missed if you haven’t made it all of the last 20 years.
Havoc:Dogs of War
By far one of the best mazes of the year, it took a theme which has been toyed with and amped it up to full blast. The government hired Shadow Creek Enterprise to experiment with genetic enhancement of our nation’s fighting forces and they went a little too far with the rage factor. The project name is Havoc and the participants are simply known as Dogs of War. Having seen some of the scare actors outside the maze and video online I know that ‘the soldiers’ actually shaved their heads to work this maze, both the GI Joes and Janes, so that their barcodes would show clearly on their scalps. They scream and rampage, they scramble from bunks and crawlspaces, they pound of the doors and slam into reinforced glass walls. It didn’t matter what time of night we went through or how slow or busy the maze was, these Dogs were always ready to bark and bite.
Zombiegeddon
One of the weaker houses, it was a good idea that just didn’t quite translate right. The concept seemed solid enough: it is Z-Day +6 months and the U.S. government has taken back most of the continental United States and Canada and have knocked down most infestations. They have now liscensed companies to capture ‘unlive’ subjects for target training and public learning. The project is called the Zombie Awareness Plan, Z.A.P. for short and if you have the money, you get the lessons. The only problem is the company you came to train at just learned their safe measures aren’t as effective as they thought. Once you got past all this it was a standard zombie maze with propaganda posters from the Zombie Wars scattered across the walls. The posters are funny but the soundtrack is way too loud causing all the scare actors to wear bright colored ear plugs and making it so that the spiel from one of your ‘trainers’ goes completely unheard. There is a few good scare spots and a decent couple of misdirections but I spent most of my time just reading and laughing at posters. At one point I noticed a zombie had jumped out at me and had for several moments been trying to get my attention but the soundtrack was too loud and I had been reading a poster so I missed the whole scare.
Legendary Truth:The Wyndot Estate
Favorite house by far. The idea of Legendary Truth as investigators isn’t a new one, the community used a group known as the Collective at 2008 HHN and has a fairly expansive website. This year one of their groups known as the Spirit Seekers are investigating a house that was the scene of a grisly murder suicide on October 30th, 1929. They are also testing out a machine designed to pull spirits to them. The house has been fully wired with cameras and the team is in place to try a live broadcast onsite. The real question is, how friendly will the spirits be when they had not gone quietly into the night? The house uses excellent effects to pull off unusual and realistic ghost tricks as well as just plain eerie ones. The talent is top-notch from the Spirit Seeker co-ordinator who meets you on the house steps and tells you to go in and meet up with the team to the last ghost to go bump on your way out. I don’t want to give away how the effects were done or what they were in case some readers are still planning on making it out there but it is definitely worth waiting in line for, more than once.
Psychoscareapy:Echoes of Shadybrook
This house was kind of middle of the road, not a bad housee but not particularly memorable. It was the fourth in Psychoscareapy and having done Psychoscareapy:Home For the Holidays a while back I had pretty high hopes for this maze. It starts pretty solid with a front desk nurse walking around with a syringe sticking out of her eye. From there, well it just becomes another asylum house. PS:Home For The Holidays did an excellent job of twisting the Christmas spirit into a Halloween nightmare giving it a strong and distinctive theme. It was refreshing seeing a real person instead of a dummy in the electric chair, though having an electric chair instead of an electric gurney seemed a bit out of character and almost made it feel more like a prison asylum rather than a long term house for the insane. I have seen the chair used in the past both as an electric chair and as a gas chamber chair, but always in a prison theme and never as a electric therapy chair. There were walkers and gurneys about to try to help the theming but is still came down to being another asylum maze and though the talent worked hard, it really didn’t stand out from other ones across the country.
The Orphanage:Ashes To Ashes
This was a nice strong house with a distinct feel and definite flair for the creepy. Though the story is shrouded in a bit of mystery apparently a lonely and misunderstood orphan named Cindy got tired of her playthings at the orphanage and started a fire. Now the lost children reach out from their ashes that still litter the burned building’s remains with one name on their lips: Cindy. The maze definitely gave you the feeling you were going through a charred building whose ghostly flames still burn hauntingly hot from time to time. The perished orphans are often dressed in old style animal costumes and carved animal masks and cry for help from locked cages, burnt timber or in one case, floating in mid-air. Cindy herself can be seen throughout the house giving you her mischeivous smile and gleeful laugh. The overall effect gives an excellent suspension of disbelief and it is easy to quickly forget you are in a theme park, probably one of the top three houses this year.
Zones & Attractions:
The Coven
This area tried to cover pretty much every witch conception out there. From the naughty sexy witch to the old hag who sees through an eyeball in her hand, if you had a witch preconception it was represented. There were some solid scare spots in the zone and excellent locations for misdirection and sneaking up on folks. It was flanked on both ends by Puritans burning on a pyre, who could at anytime walk up to the edge of their flaming heap and tell you how evil the sexy witch you are getting your picture taken with is. The scare actors held character well and made the zone not just fun to walk but fun to watch. The whole zone I believe was about 100 yards.
Zombie Gras
This seemed like a fun idea for a scare zone that just kinda failed. The idea is simple, zombies infected all but one person at Mardi Gras so that one person is hiding on a crashed float to stay alive. When the undead get too close he throws out beads toward the passing patrons so that the shiney things will distract the zombies long enough for him to find a new place to hide on the float. Having been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and loving zombies I was pretty excited to get to this zone. I got there and I laughed and watched, then stopped laughing, sat down and watched some more. Event attendees would stop and ask for beads and get them and move on. The zombies would interact a little with the guests, nothing too exciting, then back to chasing the guy around the float. Tied loosely to the Zombiegeddon maze, the events are supposed to depict the North American zombie infestation breaking out. It was a really small zone, not much bigger than a building front, and if you weren’t paying attention you missed it.
Saws N’ Steam
The earth’s crust has cracked and so the new power source is steam. Due to steam misting up all the water, water has become a very precious commodity so watch out, you may be rounded up by chainsaw wielding steampunks for your body’s most valuable fluid. Due to the social issues that all this has created, the inhabitants of New Yorkshire work at this single-mindedly and every body’s harvest is a show they hate to miss. It is like a steampunk street gang and you have wandered onto their turf which is a considerable size of two streets with a connecting alley.
Esqueleto Muerte
Revelling in the seductive taunts of Death you wind your way through a skeletal nightmare… though it really wasn’t so seductive and the skeletons were all black light so it wasn’t too nightmarish either unless the idea of velvet black light posters always gave you the willies. It felt more like a festive Day of The Dead zone, and was enjoyable but fairly short and uneventful.
HHN:20 Years Of Fear
This was a scare zone that at first appears to be a really long one but in reality overlaps with XX:Fear Revealed. You walk into an area that seems to be a prop storage zone. As you go through you see all kinds of characters and icons from the past popping in and out of props from houses and scare zones over the years. It was a true pleasure to see Mary Shaw in all her creepy glory as well as to bow to the Ice Queen and stare up at the Tree Monster. As you progressed out of the maze of props you find yourself passing sets as you enter the XX:Fear Revealed zone.
XX:Fear Revealed
A small zone at the end of the 20 Years of Fear zone this area is mainly meet and greet sets with such past HHN icons as The Storyteller in front of her rocker and reading room, Jack in front of a Circus tent, the Director and many others. The end of the zone consisted of a giant XX with flames shooting out of it and loud music and voice tracked speeches. Don’t get me wrong, Fear himself was huge, his minions that slithered into the crowds were creepy and the flame light could be seen from the other side of the park and it is not a small park! Plenty of people spent plenty of time standing and gaping at the spectacle that was their new icon, Fear himself!
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure
This show is an iconic returning symbol of HHN on both coasts and is a playful, sometimes stinging parody of pop culture delivered by two symbols of 1980s pop culture. Though plenty of the fans packing the seats weren’t alive or at least old enough to have seen the Bill and Tedd movies in person, everyone enjoys the shots taken at celebrities and trends that are the top searches on Yahoo these days. Excellent as always I hope rumors of their show’s future demise are bogus.
Bryan Brushwood: Menace And Malice
We weren’t able to time working this show in so we cannot give a personal review of it. Locals, some die-hard east coast haunters, suggested that it was a show that could be missed.
Texting Adventures:
This is an interesting idea they tried out this year and though not original, it is the first time I have seen it used for passing time while waiting in a house line. USA Network has been doing this with both Burn Notice and Covert Ops and it is a fun way to pass time. When you get in line or if you check your park map you are given a number and a word to text to it on your mobile phone. Sending the word starts a kind of choose your own adventure game where you are given different choices to make with different outcomes each time. As an example, maybe at the Orphanage house you are told to send the word CINDY to a certain number. It will tell you that you are in a yard next to a tree, to go in the house send the word HOUSE, to investigate the tree send the word TREE. You may wind up getting crushed by a tree branch or discovering the secret of the Orphanage fire if you make the right or wrong choices. It was a fun little game to play while waiting somewhere and good for some laughs.
How About This Weather?
There were only a couple of issues with the whole celebration. One was the over 85% humidity which HHN could not have any control over and tried to help alleviate with misters and fans. When the humidity gets that high though it gets more difficult to enjoy the fact that it always feels like you put your clothes on fresh out of the washer without letting them dry first. The other was the size of the scare zones for the most part were kinda small, you could easily stand at one end and see the scares the whole length of them. Lots of strong fog machines helped a bit with this but you still generally ended a scare zone wanting more.
Last Call:
HHN Orlando is a Halloween mecca for the east coast and for good reason. For 20 years they have been building quality houses and scare zones and hiring excellent scareactors to fill them. This year was no different and it was a spooky pleasure to walk down 20 years of memory lane with them.
*DISCLOSURE: I went through five shirts over three days of humidity for the purpose of this review.
Happy Columbus Day, Everyone!
On October 12th, Lucasarts will release the demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace and the PlayStation Network. In the demo level, you will be able to check out the very beginning of the game, which takes in a secret cloning facility on the planet of Kamino. Starkiller, told by Vader he is no more than a clone, becomes tormented by the memories of his past and escapes into the rain-soaked planet with Vader not far behind. Unleash the power of dual Lightsabers, over-top Force powers including the new Jedi Mind Trick.
The retail version of The Force Unleashed 2 is due out on October 26th.
