Archive - 2011

Capcom Shows Off Upcoming Titles at E3

2011/06/08
Judgeman
E3, News

Capcom today showcased many of their upcoming releases for the next year at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.  Capcom was busy showing off new content for their previously announced titles; Dragon’s Dogma, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City, Resident Evil Revelations, and Street Fighter X Tekken.  Capcom also debuted playable versions of Asura’s Wrath, Dead Rising 2:  Off the Record, and Street Fighter III:  Third Strike Online Edition.

 

Dragon’s Dogma
From the creators behind some of Capcom’s best action games, including the critically acclaimed Resident Evil®4 and Devil May Cry®4, comes their next opus, Dragon’s Dogma. Set in a vast open world, Dragon’s Dogma is a unique action experience that blends exciting and fulfilling combat with the freedom to explore and interact in a rich, living and breathing world. With a party of three Pawns, players set out on an epic adventure to track down and destroy a mysterious dragon. Along the way are encounters with some of the biggest and baddest beasts ever to roam the land, and only skillful play and tactical teamwork can save the day. At this year’s E3, attendees will be able to experience two of the game’s epic encounters as they battle the legendary Griffin and Chimera beasts. Dragon’s Dogma will deliver a whole new world of action to PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft® in early 2012.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City delivers a third person team based shooter experience set in the sinister Resident Evil® universe. It’s September 1998 and Umbrella has ordered an elite team of its security service soldiers (U.S.S) into Raccoon City to destroy all evidence of the organization’s involvement in the horrific T-Virus outbreak. The E3 demo showcases the game’s four player co-op campaign as the U.S.S. battle against the US Government Spec Ops, zombies and deadly Bio Organic Weapons on their mission to eliminate any survivors, including rookie cop Leon. S. Kennedy. For the first time in Resident Evil history, players will risk infection from the hordes of zombies scattering the streets of Raccoon City, causing their playing ability to be jeopardized and their character’s behavior to change, ultimately turning them against their own team members. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC this Winter.

Asura’s Wrath
With unprecedented levels of dynamism, drama and interaction, Asura’s Wrath will deliver a fresh take on the action gaming genre. Making its playable debut at the show, attendees will be able to experience the rage that fuels Asura and how the title blurs the traditional lines between gameplay and cinematics through seamless player controlled narrative. With a combination of range attacks and visceral close-quarters action, Asura will fill his “Burst Gauge” which depicts his ever growing level of rage. Once full, even the largest of enemies will witness Asura’s rage as he unleashes frenzied, devastating and visually dramatic attacks. Asura will let loose his wrath when the title launches on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012.

Resident Evil Revelations
Built from the ground up for the Nintendo 3DS™, Resident Evil Revelations sees a return to survival horror, revealing a brand new storyline for the series. Taking place between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil®5, the action centers on BSAA member Jill Valentine and introduces her new partner Parker Luciani. Set principally on board a supposedly abandoned cruise ship, players will be able to take control of Jill on her search for Chris Redfield, whose last known GPS data positions him as being on the ship. Danger lurks around every corner and with nowhere to run or hide in the confined space of the ship, players must face a menacing new enemy that emerges from the darkness. E3 attendees will experience the horror that Resident Evil Revelations adds to the series through a playable demo at the show.  In addition, an exclusive gameplay video being shown in the Capcom theatre features characters venturing underwater, for the first time ever in the series, in order to escape from the terrifying creatures that roam the ship. But will the water provide such sanctuary?

STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN
The long awaited dream match-up between the two leaders in the fighting genre becomes a reality.  STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN delivers the ultimate tag team match up featuring iconic characters from each franchise, and one of the most robust character line-ups in fighting game history.  With the addition of new gameplay mechanics, and having members of the original Super Street Fighter®IV team take key roles in its development, the acclaimed fighting engine from Street Fighter®IV has been refined to suit the needs of both Street Fighter® and TEKKEN® players alike. E3 attendees have one of the first chances to get hands-on with an early version of the game. This latest demo features dozens of playable characters from both Street Fighte r and TEKKEN, including the newly revealed Cammy, Sagat, Julia and Hwoarang. STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
Frank West is back in the game! Dead Rising 2: Off the Record sees the return of photojournalist Frank West as he takes center stage in this reimagining of the Fortune City outbreak. This new “Off the Record” storyline means an all new Dead Rising®2 experience.  Frank will face off against more twisted enemies, build more outrageous combo weapons, follow his own unique mission structure and explore brand new areas of Fortune City to get his biggest scoop yet. Debuting the first playable at E3 2011, the demo features the all new “Uranus Zone,” Fortune City’s very own theme park. Full of deadly rides and crazy attractions, the sci-fi themed Uranus Zone is a true zombie-killing paradise.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC this fall.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition
Bringing the new generation of World Warriors to new consoles and debuting its first playable at E3, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition takes one of the deepest, most sophisticated fighting games of all time online with an arcade perfect re-creation. Featuring the unique and memorable characters of the Street Fighter®III series, GGPO-enabled online allows players to use their technical moves – like the series-defining parry system – in a seamless, arcade-like environment. High-quality, HD-filtered graphics emphasize the smooth animation, a vault of unlockables allow for replayability, and an integrated leaderboard combined with an extensive and viral replay sharing system encourage players to bring their A-game. Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition will battle its way to PlayStation® Network and Xbox LIVE® Arcade as a download title later this year.

Nintendo E3 2011 Impressions

2011/06/07
E3, News, Previews

My on-site E3 experience started off this morning with a visit to the amazing Nokia Theater for the Nintendo press conference. After some tense moments, fearing I wouldn’t make it in time, I got in as the lights came down…

Cue the music! A live orchestra and choir kicked things off by playing a montage of songs from the Zelda universe, while onstage, a pretty sweet Zelda retrospective was showing. At the end of the video, the crowd erupted into the first round of applause as Shigeru Miyamoto took the stage. As this was my first Nintendo presser, I was a little bummed to see him in a suit as opposed to wielding his sword and shield. I reference to the video and music, he mused, “Brings back a lot of memories”.

This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Zelda series and to celebrate, Nintendo is releasing Zelda titles across all their platforms. In addition to the games, there will be a special Gold Wii Remote Controller released alongside Skyward Sword, a series of live concerts performing the music of Zelda touring worldwide and 2 CD’s – one with the score from the 3DS title, Ocarina of Time 3D and the other a collection of music from the tour. At the conclusion of this section, Miyamoto had several of the Zelda collaborators come onstage so he could public ally thank them, then he thanked the Zelda players around the world for the continuing success of the Zelda series.

Next up was Satoru Iwata. His opening speech was about expanding the gaming population… How Nintendo has done so far and their game plan to expand it even further. “Mental boundaries exist in how game systems are designed… We haven’t acheived a game platform that is created for all gamers. The goal of Nintendo is to serve every player. The next Nintendo platform is a good attempt to achieve that goal.”. However, he wasn’t ready to reveal the next big thing quite yet.

The next item out of the gate was a video showcasing the next batch of Nintendo 3DS titles. It showcased Mario Kart, Starfox, Mario, Kid Icarus and a first look at Luigi’s Mansion 2. After the video, Reggie Fils Amie took the stage. He asked hypothetically if it was possible to deliver “something for everyone”. His answer was that they are attempting to with the 3DS. He then launched into a video of Mario Kart 3DS.

Mario Kart adds a couple new gameplay features – aerial and underwater gameplay. There is also a new component that allows you to modify your Kart. They showed off some monster truck looking Karts in the demo. Immediately following the presentation, I was able to go hands on with it and it was a lot of fun. I modded out my Kart, then set out on the track. The 3D effects were nicely implemented. This game is due out by the ubiquitous “Holiday 2011”.

Starfox 3D was shown in video form and is due out in September.

Kid Icarus. Uprising had something new up it’s sleeve, 3 on 3 multiplayer! Also, they showed off a boss, Medusa, which looked pretty impressive. They also teased the use of augmented reality cards with the game, which looked interesting. This game is due out this year as well.

Next up… “The first brother of video games is back and he has his vacuum.” That’s right, this was the reveal and official announcement for Luigi’s Mansion 2. The game is set to feature Luigi and his ghost cleaning across multiple mansions.

After Luigi, hey showed another montage of several upcoming releases.. Ace Combat, Tetris, Resident Evil, Cave Story (which garnered a strong crowd reaction), Driver Renegade, Tekken, and finally Pac-Man and Galaga. Then, they showed off an enhanced Internet browser and announced an App Store, the new Nintendo E-Shop. The e-shop will allow you to get games and demos, right on the handheld. They also showed off the new Virtual Console for the 3DS. To kick off the Virtual Console, they are giving a free game, 3D Excitebike (Excitebike was one of my original favorites on the NEC.

To wrap things up, Reggie announced a new feature for Pokemon 3DS. It is a revamped Pokedex. It will allow for sharing between your friends, and even allow you to place Pokemon in pictures. The crowd was remarkably silent during this part of the presentation. Could it be that we are finally growing tired of Pokemon? I know I am. As they moved on, they let us know that the 3DS means Social, Connection and Interaction in total 3D.

Then it was time for the meat of the matter. The new console reveal! They started off by talking about how they came up wit the name for the Wii. They also said that the new console should focus on bringing “You” to the “We” from before. Therefore they decided to call the new console the Wii U. All they really showed off yesterday was the new controller and some tech demos for it. They didn’t really address the console itself, but the controller in and of itself was pretty exciting. It features a 6.2″ touchscreen, every button you’d expect to see on a current generation controller, an accelerometer, speakers, rumble, a microphone and a front facing camera… Whew! The videos focused on new tech demos and exciting new ways to utilize not only the new controller, but also the current-gen Nintendo controllers as well. One demo that showed the versatility of the whole package was a golf game. The new controller’s screen showed your golf ball in a sand trap. The TV screen showed the fairway and the sandtrap your ball was in. The player placed the new controller on the floor, picked up a Wii remote, then swung it, golf club style at the ball on the new controller. When it “connected” the ball flew from the new controller into the tv screen and onto the green. Impressive.

They also showed the controller being used to send videos to the TV, as a video chat device, and even an autonomous video game playing machine, as two people played Othello on it. It seemed as if Nintendo is taking their time and really doing their homework to create new and unique ideas for this provocative new system. The console will be in full HD And they showed some demo footage to prove it. Miyamoto talked about a new Mario idea they are working on as a prototype called Mario Mii, which puts your Mii directly in the game next to Mario. It looked pretty fun. They only made one official game announcement, Lego City Stories which will be coming not only to the Wii U, but also the 3DS. They did however, show a developer interview video and announced some future titles that should be coming to the Wii U… Darksiders 2, Tekken, Arkham City, Dirt, Aliens Colonial Marines, Ghost Recon Online, Metro Last Night, and Ninja Gaiden 3. John Riccitiello from EA came onstage to announce a new partnership between EA and Nintendo and said “We can’t wait to see EA Games on this new system. He showed off a video of their top-tier titles, Madden, FIFA, Need for Speed, Harry Potter, The Sims, Army of 2 and Battlefield.

So that was the Nintendo press conference here at E3 yesterday. It was a great and exciting way to kick off E3. Nintendo is packing quite a punch this year.

Images

New NeverWinter Screenshots

2011/06/07
Jerry Paxton
E3, News

The Foundry has revealed several new E3 screenshots for its upcoming Dungeons and Dragons title, NeverWinter.

Nintendo Announces The Wii U

2011/06/07
E3, News

The Nintendo E3 2011 press conference just finished and the their new console has been announced. Dubbed the “Wii U”, the new console offers an iPad-like controller that allows the player to not use his tv at all if they do not wish to. Players can switch back and forth between the tv and the controller, which features a large LCD touch screen, depending on what they want to play. The controller also allows touch controls for things like sports games and inventory for RPG’s. The WiiU is Nintendo’s first step into next gen graphics and the tech demos displayed were impressive. On board for launch support are big name publishers EA and Ubisoft. Nintendo also announced that versions of Super Smash Brothers and Kid Icarus will be coming when the system launches in 2012.

Stay tuned to the site as we provide more coverage of the Wii U and everything else on the E3 2011 show floor.

Bethesda Announces Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition

2011/06/07
Jerry Paxton
E3, News

20110607-103243.jpg

Bethesda Softworks has announced that its upcoming Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition will launch on July 12th, 2011. The game retails for $29.99 and will be available on the Windows PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

The Elder Scrolls IV™: Oblivion® 5th Anniversary Edition includes:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: With the empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land. You must find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.

Knights of the Nine: A fallen King has been unchained from the darkness of Oblivion to seek vengeance upon the Gods who banished him. Only a champion pure of heart can vanquish the evil that has been released.

Shivering Isles: Enter the torn realm of Sheogorath – a world where Mania and Dementia reign. Do you have the strength to survive his trials, to tame a realm fraught with paranoia and despair, and wear the mantle of a God?

The North American 5th Anniversary Edition also includes:

Collector’s Steelbook: A beautiful collectible metal case masterfully embossed with Daedric symbols.

Making of Oblivion: A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Oblivion.

Oblivion Game Map: A full-color map of Cyrodiil and the Shivering Isles.

Save on Skyrim: Contains a $10 mail-in rebate offer for the purchase of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and a Skyrim strategy guide.

Details on the versions that will be available in the rest of the world and their contents will be released soon.

DUST 514 Coming Exclusively to PS3

2011/06/06
Jerry Paxton
E3, News

CCP Games has announced that its upcoming DUST 514, the first-person shooter set in the EVE Online universe, will be a PS3 exclusive and shall be released in Summer of 2012. The game allows players to duke it out for control of planets, etc while other players engage in space battles high above. The game will feature both subscription based and pre-paid options.

“The ability for Sony Computer Entertainment to partner with a developer like CCP, known for pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation in the MMO genre, holds tremendous potential for the PlayStation 3 community,” said Rob Dyer, Senior Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment of America. “We anticipate that DUST 514 will transform the landscape across PlayStation 3 and the PC, ushering in a new era of shared cross platform gaming.”

It is unknown yet whether or not the game will eventually see a multi-platform launch but, as of now, it would appear it is a PS3 only title.

Sony E3 2011 Press Event Image Gallery

2011/06/06
Jerry Paxton
E3, News

Here are some images from Sony’s E3 2011 press event which took place earlier today. During the event, Sony announced that their next-gen handheld unit which had previously been known as NGP (Next Generation Portable) was now officially known as the PlayStation Vita.

Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning Trailer

2011/06/06
E3, News

38 Studios and Big Huge Games have released their official E3 2011 trailer for Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning.  The game set in a fantasy world, is the first game from 38 studios and as a hefty cast behind it.  Writing the story is the creator of all things fantasy R.A. Salvatore and the art direction is done by Spawn’s Todd Mcfarlane.  Check out the trailer below and the game when it releases in 2012.

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