Namco Bandai Games have revealed even more aircraft for their upcoming Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, including the Eurofighter Typhoon and the RafaleM. Checkout more info below!
This week’s aircraft highlights for ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON includes:
Fighters
Multiroles
Attackers
Universal and Neverdie have announced the release of a multiplayer online games based on their upcoming horror movie, The THING, which is due out in theaters on October 14, 2011. The game, called “Hunt the THING”, uses Neverdie’s ROCKtropia digital hangout as a platform where players can go on missions, solve puzzles, and more. The game is free to play and available now, so get on it! Also, watch those around you… Watch ’em close.
“Hunt The THING is truly the first massively multiplayer game experience of its kind,” said Jon “NEVERDIE” Jacobs. “It brings together the depth of the classic MMORPG and the edge-of-your-seat excitement of the new feature film The Thing for a true movie-length MMOG that you can experience quickly, but also enjoy for extended periods of time.”
Konami, HASBRO, and USAopoly.com have announced that video game franchise Metal Gear Solid has finally become a board game in the form of RISK: Metal Gear Solid Limited Edition. This edition of the classic strategy game is available for Presale October 3, 2011, exclusively online at USAopoly.com, Metal Gear Solid Risk Limited Edition will price out at $49.95.
“Metal Gear Solid builds on the modernized and streamlined RISK game play introduced in 2008 with all new Metal Gear Solid components to create a unique, fun and fast paced experience for RISK and Metal Gear Solid Fans alike,” said Adam Sblendorio, Lead Game Designer for USAOPOLY®. “In order to win you’ll have to take advantage of Metal Gear Solid specific high powered black market weapons, hire the right mercenary boss at the right time, manage alliances and watch your back as the mobile battleship, Outer Haven, can invade territories from new locations (watch out Australia).”
Digital Reality has released a new aerial racing game for the Xbox 360 named Skydrift. To be honest, I didn’t know a lot about Skydrift before I downloaded it to my Xbox 360, which is truly a crime because Skydrift is one of the best racing games that you will play this year. Combining the hectic racing game play of Mario Kart with the aerial acrobatics of Crimson Skies (oh, how I miss that game), Skydrift is a deep racing game that looks great to play.
Story and Gameplay:
The story is just like any other racing game, win the damn race. No matter what game type you are playing, the goal is the same, to come in first. Most of the game modes pits you against a set number of opponents where the first plane across the finish line wins, but you will run into other game modes that shake things up a bit, like elimination where the last place plane when time runs out is eliminated. The game modes are varied enough to keep you from getting bored and are quite fun in their own right.
The controls for Skydrift took me a little while to get used to, but once you do they feel very intuitive and right. You have the typical gas and break triggers to make your plane go, along with a shoot button and a boost button. You also have the ability to do stunts in order to gain boost by flying on the edges of your wings. Doing this will allow you to take tighter corners at a much higher rate of speed. Think of it like a hand break option in a car racing game, easy to do but hard to master.
The weapons are fairly typical for this type of game, you have your mines, machine guns, rockets and shield power ups. If you are shot down or crash into a wall, you will respawn right where you died and begin the race again. During each race, you can carry two items at a time, but you can upgrade these items by collecting another item that is the same. For example, if you already have a shield power up, collecting another shield power up will boost that shield when you use it and allows you to absorb much more damage. One feature that I really liked with Skydrift’s game play is the option to turn a power up into boost. I always hated being in front of the pack in Mario Kart with a useless power up, with this feature that is fixed and I can boost away from the pack that is chasing me.
Skydrift is full of extra items that a player can collect, like extra skins for the eight planes in the game or different awards and achievements. Each plane has different stats and can be useful in different game modes or styles of play. Like to blast your enemies but worried that they will blast you back? Take the plane that has the higher defense. Do you play much more of a straight racing style? Then the plane with the higher speed and acceleration but lower defense may work for you.
Skydrift can be played over Xbox Live, but I was unable to get any Live games in due to the severe lack of opponents. Skydrift had a quiet release, which means I don’t think a lot of you have heard about how good this game is and have not purchased it yet from the Xbox Live Marketplace. This has led to a lack of online games currently for Skydrift, as I couldn’t find a single game or opponent to play against whenever I tried during my time with Skydrift. I hope this changes soon, because this game deserves a solid online community.
Aesthetics:
Skydrift is great to look at. The planes look fantastic and are extremely colorful, just like racing planes should be. The levels are well designed and very interesting. In many cases, the level actually caused me to take my mind off of the race at hand to stare at a great feature of the track or by looking for an alternative route through a lava field. I am grateful for the targeting reticule that the game provides, because honestly it’s hard to see the other planes in all of the features of each level. You can loose the plane ahead of you as he dives through a waterfall or around extremely tight curves and out of your line of sight. Skydrift is just a joy to look at and the racetracks are varied and interesting enough to keep you from getting bored.
The sound, on the other had, just does its job well enough so that it is not bad. The soundtrack is typical race game fare, with nothing that stands out to be praised while the sound effects does the job, nothing more. There is no race announcer at all, but I’ll leave it up to you on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Overall, the visual aesthetics are fantastic, while the sound aesthetics are just serviceable.
Final Thoughts:
Skydrift has had a quiet release and that is a shame, this game deserves more attention. Skydrift combines the chaos of a Mario Kart style racing game, with the dog fighting mechanics of an aerial fighting game. Digital Reality really did a fantastic job on Skydrift, filling it with exciting and gorgeous racing levels and different awards that players can earn during races. While the game has it’s downsides, Skydrift has much more going for it and is a great purchase for any racing or aerial dogfighting fans out there. What is really the worst part about Skydrift is the current lack of an online community. With a strong online community behind it, Skydrift’s appeal will last a long time and it’s replayability would greatly increase.
Microsoft Studios and Certain Affinity have brought us the newest action role playing game to hit the Xbox Live Arcade with Crimson Alliance. Crimson Alliance follows three prototypical heroes through the fallen empire of Byzan as they work their way to Byzan’s new ruler, the Soul Siren. Taking many of its game play features from games such as Diablo and Torchlight, Crimson Alliance is a decent game that could have been much better with a few adjustments.
Story:
Crimson Alliance follows three heroes as they travel through the Empire of Byzan. The heroes, Direwolf the Wizard, Gnox the Mercenary and Moonshade the Assassin, work their way through dungeon after dungeon, until they reach the Soul Siren, the new and corrupted ruler of Byzan. As our heroes fight through the masses of the Soul Siren’s forces, they have to deal with their own sordid past and work together through distrust in order to rescue the Empire of Byzan.
While the story of Crimson Alliance won’t win any awards this year, it is solid enough to be entertaining. My biggest disappointment with the writing for Crimson Alliance is that the story can’t quite decide what tone it wants to portray throughout the story. At some spots, the story starts to touch on a humorous tone, but then quickly backs away. If the writing had been closer to what was found in Magicka, then I think it would have been a bigger hit with me. But as it stands, it just feels serviceable with characters that feel way too much like clones of these typical archetypes.
Gameplay:
Crimson Alliance focuses on the three class dungeon crawler model, in a similar vein to Torchlight. In Crimson Alliance, you have attacks mapped to three buttons with a teleport ability attached to the fourth button. Your attacks don’t change throughout the game, they just gain in strength depending on the item that you have equipped. Each class has a stun attack that will allow them to slow down the fight, for instance, the wizard’s attack sends out a wave of ice that will freeze his opponents in their place. The movement controls are fluid and well done, and the attack controls make sense and feel just right to me.
In each level, the player has a chance to find hidden treasure that is behind a obstacle that only his class can unlock. This hidden treasure is an upgrade for one of his equipment slots. The wizard, for example, carries a staff, an orb, and robes, so in each dungeon you will find a special upgrade for one of these spots. You can also buy upgrades at the end of the level from the traveling merchant with the gold that you find as you move through the level. You will not find any upgrades to this equipment as drops from the level’s denizens. The only items that you will find are extra items that can become useful, like sentry guns or throwing axes.
Up to four players can play Crimson Alliance, either over Xbox Live or through local co-op. I ran through the levels through the local co-op with two other people and really thought that this is where the game shines. In fact, there will be some puzzles for gold that you simply cannot solve without the other people in your group, so make some friends before playing Crimson Alliance.
Crimson Alliance plays quite well, but in the end still feels like Torchlight or Diablo, just without some of the features that makes either of those games great. You don’t get a skill tree in Crimson Alliance, your skills are improved by the type of item that you equip. I also feel that the lack of item drops throughout the game just makes Crimson Alliance feel incomplete. I love the randomness of item drops in Torchlight or Diablo, there is always a chance that an upgrade can be found on the next monster you kill. That feeling is gone in Crimson Alliance, where your upgrades are bought at the end of the level, or discovered by searching for the one item per level that is hidden.
Aesthetics:
Crimson Alliance does have a nice style to it. From it’s comic book style intro to its dark dungeon levels, Crimson Alliance does look very nice. I was very pleased when the levels started to change from drab dungeon interior to exterior. One of my biggest complaints with these types of games is that you only get a certain variety of indoor dungeon for your level scheme. Crimson Alliance, in the same way that Diablo II does it, moves the action outside and changes up your level aesthetic so that you are not just looking at the same type of dungeon wall. Though Crimson Alliance does not do it as well as Diablo II, I gotta say that I liked the aesthetics here more then I did in Torchlight.
The voice acting is typical of this type of game, not fantastic but does the job. The characters are voiced in the exact way you would expect, the wizard sounds old and wizened, the mercenary is much more brutish while the assassin has a quiet tone to her voice. Some of the dialogue gets over the top, in a way that I would have enjoyed if Crimson Alliance would have gone the humorous route for it’s story. Since the story did not go that direction, the over the top dialogue just feels corny and out of place in these cases.
Final Thoughts:
Crimson Alliance does many things that other action rpgs do well, but in the end falls short of the better games. While it’s aesthetics and game play are solid, the lack of item drops in Crimson Alliance just makes the game feel unfinished in comparison to Diablo II or Torchlight. The 4 player online or local co-op is a great feature for the game and will ensure that there is plenty to do with friends. What makes Crimson Alliance accessible to players is the pricing scheme, which is free for the base game, 800 Microsoft Points for one class or 1200 Points for all three classes. This makes Crimson Alliance worth whatever money you want to put into it, and in this economy that’s probably the best feature of the game. At the end of the day, most players will probably wait until Diablo III or Torchlight II comes out for their next action rpg, but if you are looking for a good action rpg on a budget, then Crimson Alliance will serve you well.
Konami has released a new gameplay video from their upcoming shooter, Inversion, showing off the game’s gravity-bending weaponry in action. Inversion will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on February 7, 2012 in North America and February 10, 2012 in Europe.
With last week’s unveiling of the first Max Payne 3 trailer, Rockstar Games has re-released it – but with pop-up infobits highlighting things you may have missed or not known about the game. Check it out, it is well-worth the view.
Kalypso Media and B.Alive have announced the launch of the official website for the upcoming airline sim, Airline Tycoon 2. The website features character bios, screenshots, videos, and more. The game is scheduled to launch this October on Windows PCs and will allow players to get the thrill of running their own airline and all the decisions required of that position.
Ratloop Asia has released the official trailer for their upcoming PSN exclusive, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, which is due out this October.
Focus Home Interactive has released the official trailer for its upcoming strategy title, A Game of Thrones: Genesis. The game is due out on September 29 for Windows PCs and is based in the fantasy world created by George R.R. Martin.
