Deep Silver has sent out some awesome new screenshots from their upcoming FPS zombie-epic, Dead Island. We will be seeing more of this in a few weeks at E3, but for now you can enjoy the screenshots below.
Archive - 2011
As of 11:08pm pacific, these states have PSN service returning or returned.
Sony has announced a phased restoration of their PlayStation Network and its assorted processes in this official video. Additionally, services have been steadily return across many parts of North America, as can be seen in this official Sony blog post.
505 Games and Reverie World Studios have released a ton of information detailing the history and the races of their upcoming MMO Dawn Of Fantasy. Check out all the info below and Dawn Of Fantasy when it hits store shelves for the PC on June 17th.
In Dawn of Fantasy’s rich MMO universe, three races are dominant; the race of Men, the Orcs and the Elves. However, this is no simplistic copy of classical fantasy; all of these races have spread around the world for generations and the tribes have adapted to their locales. Additionally, these aren’t the only peoples in the world of Mythador…
Though the Elves originated in the woodlands of Bolfores’l, their culture has never been unified, forming separate communities of Wood Elves and High Elves. The former are skilled in nature lore and earth magic, the latter in alchemy, city-building and warfare. They live together in the capital city of Illas Tiltos at the heart of Bolfores’l, high in the trees of their woodland cities, and also have settled their own havens; the Wood Elves in the swamps of Erthee L’Bala, and the High Elves in the mountain strongholds of the Taltos.
The Elven military has always focused on defense. They have the world’s strongest, stealthiest archers, enchanted ballistae, and the backing of the mighty Treants in sieges, capable of crushing gates and lifting friendly units over walls. With such defenses, why would they go to war? It is whispered that their kingdom is divided with their king kidnapped, the land sickening, and Wood and High Elves at each other’s throats… and on the borders, the Orcs wait.
These Orcs are not a single race, but a nomadic tribe of allied monstrosities. Goblins, Wargs, and Ogres are all in their service, and their focus is most certainly not on defense. With their primitive civilization, they rely more on what they can take than what they can create or grow, and their realm of Gokkholm is similarly barren and brutal. The Orc king too, was kidnapped; but he was betrayed to the humans and, on the verge of his return, murdered; since his death, the leadership of the land has been in turmoil.
In the hot south, Brakental, a city built by exiles, is manned by desert Orcs who eschew ranged weaponry, relying on their indomitable melee forces. Meanwhile, the Swamp Orcs believe themselves to have been the first Orcs, created from the lightning striking the earth in the fertile marshes of Flattan Rol, and are huge in number, defending the great fortress of Makkada. Finally, the thinly-scattered Orcs of Thikken Dal settled in the distant western forests and learned to specialize in archery and sieges.
The diverse Men of the world are more recent arrivals from the West, settling on the coast several centuries ago and rapidly spreading inland. Their capital region, Southmont, has two major cities nestled amongst the mountains, and is rich, fertile and strongly defended. The meadows of the eponymous Rollingplain are emptier than Southmont after Orc incursions, but are rightly famed for their cavalry. The once-rebellious region of the Wold and the city of Menthorn lie amidst coastal forests, known for its archers, halberdiers and siege weaponry.
The Wold is at the heart of the humans’ troubles; when the human king too died and the three races plunged into the War Without Kings, the traitors of Menthorn rose up against the state. Though this mutiny was put down, growing peasant unrest implies they are at work again, even as the rogue wizard suspected of the king’s murder reappears, and the neighboring Elves’ internal struggles spill out into the world.
Of course, this being High Fantasy, these are not the only races in the world: in the gold-riddled mountains of the North, the squat dwarves bide their time, while elsewhere in the world the Dragons reign. Both of these peoples will send troops to aid one of the races in battle – for a steep price.
Back at E3 2010 We got our first look at Bethesda and Splash Damage’s parkour-infused FPS, BRINK. The story of the Ark came alive as players were asked to join either the Resistance or the Security faction to fight for the Ark itself. Based around the SMART movement system that brings a new twist to the FPS genre BRINK sets out to change the way people play team based games. Does BRINK reach the Ark or does it run smack into a wall? Check out out what we thought was cool and what we thought sucked below.
What We Thought Was Cool
SMART Movement System:
The SMART movement system is a really interesting idea that the developers made work quite well in the game. Depending on your characters body type you are able to pull off some pretty fancy moves while trying to avoid getting killed. As you move your way through each level you may see a platform that looks hard to reach or some obstacles in your path. Running towards these objects and holding down the A button will make your player power slide underneath an object or do a parkour bounce off of a wall. There was one scenario during our play test where we double jumped off a wall only to land behind a group of players. Needless to say, we were able to lay down some killer fire that wiped a few of them out. The SMART movement system performed great for us and added a fun twist to the genre.
Character Creation and Customization:
Right before launch the developers sent out a press release touting the countless customizations a player could make with their character. This holds true and the creation/customization system is one of the best things about the game. As you play through the game and level up, not only do you unlock perks for your in-game play but you open up new things for your character. I found myself spending quite a bit of time going through how I wanted my player to look just to get that perfect serial killer type. Throw on top of that the way you can customize weapons and you have a pretty deep system. Our only complaint with weapon customization is that the only way to unlock them is to do the challenge mode and that can be a bit tedious.
Objective Based Multiplayer:
When playing online with friends or random strangers BRINK offers some great objective based multiplayer fun. As you are setting up your game, there is a timed match option that is just like any other game but the real fun lies in the objectives mode. ‘Objectives’ make players work together to actually get things done. One problem I find in most multiplayer games is people will just run around in circles with their weapons spraying buttons. In BRINK, there are things for each class to do in order to win the map. Most of my time was spent playing as an Operative and thus hacking objectives was where I was needed. There was one game session where a computer terminal needed to be hacked but I just kept getting killed. Finally, my team figured it out and surrounded my player making a human shield as I hacked the objective. This was satisfying in the fact that it leaves the player feeling like they accomplished something.
Stay Classy:
BRINK is all about the classes and the terminal wheel is a great twist to multiplayer. Any character on your team can access a captured terminal and change their class at any point of the match. Is your team running low on a solider class and an objective is not going to be blown up? The terminal wheel offers the chance for a team to fix their shortcomings and help them better adapt to the situation around them. This feature adds to the overall gameplay by letting people work together to overcome the objectives in front of them no matter if they are shorthanded by a certain class. In the end though, it really falls to the players to take advantage of it.
What We Thought Sucked
Lack Of Singleplayer:
When BRINK was first announced, gamers were presented with a story-filled world filled with lots of characters. In the months leading up to the game it really came to light that the marketing for the game was all wrong and all BRINK was is a TF2 clone with a few tweaks. Now, there is nothing wrong with that but the false hope of a deep singleplayer really throws BRINK into a niche market. The singleplayer in BRINK is really just a run through of the MP maps with a few cinematics thrown in. It offers nothing for the player as they can just jump right into the MP and experience the same thing. There is a challenges mode that offers some harder objectives but the computer AI is so block-headed that the only reason to ever play it is to get the unlocks. One of the most frustrating things about the experience is just how bad the AI is. There is nothing like your AI standing in doorways not moving allowing you to get blown away. Very tedious and a very poor job by the developers.
Rushed To The Shelves:
BRINK as a whole feels like it is lacking that polish of what could have been a fantastic game. It feels like the game was rushed out to store shelves. There is a certain something missing when playing BRINK that could make it set itself apart from other multiplayer games. BRINK feels like a clone of other games we have already seen before with a few little updates that aren’t glaringly obvious to the player. The developers needed to spend a little more time on this title before pushing it out to the masses.
Online Stability:
When you release a multiplayer-focused game, you better make sure that your online component can handle the rush of people playing it. From day one the Xbox 360 version has been crippled by lag and host migration issues. The day one patch didn’t seem to provide much of a fix as it was hard to get a full game session in without severe connection problems. Bethesda recently announced they are working to provide a fix on this and will be offering some free DLC. The thought that they are aware of the problem is great but why release a version of the game if you know it can’t handle the main function of it? By all reports the PC version of the game doesn’t suffer from any of these issues due to using dedicated servers.
Final Thoughts:
If I can use one word to describe BRINK it would be “disappointing”. My expectations were set so high by the initial showings and marketing of BRINK that I came away feeling like I was playing something that I had played before. If you enjoy team based multiplayer FPS games BRINK does have some promise but I would advise going for the PC version as the Xbox version simply does not cut it. Here’s to hoping future patches and DLC by the games developers work to address the issues that are hurting the game.
*Update – now includes ‘England’, ‘France’, and ‘Germany’ teasers as well!
With E3 right around the corner, Activision has released the teaser trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Dubbed ‘America Under Siege’, the trailer shows a bit of the story, with what appears to be a Russian submarine launching sea to ground missiles into New York City. Expect a lot more on this one in the next few weeks as we already have our Activision press appointment penned! According to Kotaku’s Brian Crecente, the game will be launched on November 8th, 2011.
America Under Siege Trailer
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England Trailer
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France Trailer
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Germany Teaser
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G4TV has acquired an exclusive trailer for The Witcher 2 entitled ‘How to Kill A Witcher’. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is due out on May 17th for the Windows PC platform.
High Voltage Software and SEGA have released a new trailer for their Wii shooter, Conduit 2. Conduit 2 is in stores now only on the Nintendo Wii platform.
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Electronic Arts has released some new screenshots for their upcoming “psycho-punk action thriller”, Shadows of the Damned. The game is due out on June 21st for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms. It is the brainchild of Suda51 and Shinji Mikami (creator of the Resident Evil series).
Focus Home Interactive has announced a new wargame sure to turn some heads. Epically-titled, Wargame: European Escalation will see an alternate history where Western and Eastern powers clashed during the Cold War. The game is due out on Windows PCs
About Wargame: European Escalation
Set in the rarely explored period of 1975-1985, Wargame: European Escalation pits NATO (USA and Western Europe) against the Warsaw Pact (Soviet and Eastern European countries) in battles that explore “what could have been.” The specter of nuclear warfare loomed large over the real Cold War, but this catastrophic outcome was the ultimate last resort as everyone knew that the first one to start nuclear hostilities would end up wiped out just the same. Large, armored offensives through Europe would certainly have been the core of this hypothetical war; and this is what the game’s explosive campaign takes you through!
Zoo Entertainment has released a new trailer for their upcoming race title, Fireburst. Fireburst features 15 tracks to race on and will be available Summer 2011 for PC, PSN and XBLA at an MSRP of $15 for PSN / 1200 Microsoft® Points for XBLA.
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