Coming in 2012, Namco Bandai’s Ridge Racer Unbounded promises to take the racing game series into a new, fresh angle with urban street races featuring over-the-top, arcade action and destructive environments. Namco Bandai has released a new teaser trailer for the game, which you can see below.
Electronic Arts and Maxis Software have launched their much-anticipated Darkspore, a sci-fi action RPG partially-based on their 2008’s Spore. Darkspore allow players to create and grow their own race of warriors to defeat an evil force spreading across the galaxy. In celebration of this launch, the companies have released a launch trailer for the title, which you can see below.
CD Projekt RED has announced that their upcoming third-person actioner, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, has gone gold and is now off for mass production at the factory. The game is set for release on Windows PCs come May 17th.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is the eagerly awaited sequel to the award-winning, million-selling RPG that captured the imaginations of discerning players everywhere. It introduced a truly unique protagonist, the professional slayer of monsters, Geralt of Rivia, and defined a new standard for thought-provoking, non-linear game narration, with mature themes, significant choices that weren’t automatically good or bad, and true decisions that led to meaningfully different consequences.
NetherRealm Studios new Mortal Kombat is a re-imagining of the famed fighter series that began back in 1992 with the original Mortal Kombat. Created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, the series started off with an arcade fervor that lasted for a few iterations before losing some steam on the console generation as it began to stray from its core gameplay. This new Mortal Kombat, which has been released roughly 19 years after the original, is an attempt to get back to the roots of the series.
Activision has released a new trailer done up in VERY cool 1970’s grindhouse style showing off Call of the Dead, the new zombie game mode for their upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation content pack, due out on May 3rd. The new game mode features the likenesses and voices of cult fave like Danny Trejo, Michael Rooker, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
The first sponsor has announced themselves for our coverage of this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, which runs from June 7th through June 9th at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Of course, for us the expo start the previous Saturday or Sunday depending, but them’s the breaks. The first sponsor of our show coverage will be….
Clear will be providing one of their 4G+ hotspots for use on the show floor and in the various press conferences to come. Thanks again for your support, Clear!
SEGA of America has released the official launch trailer of the upcoming Conduit 2 from High Voltage Software. Conduit 2 is out now on the Nintendo Wii.
Okay, so it has been a long three weeks with a crazy amount of effort and lost news days – but, we are back in business with our daily doses of gaming news and reviews. We have fully-moved over to a WordPress blogging system in order to be more SEO-friendly as well as get better performance for you fine readers.
The Good
New User Registration System!
Better comment system!
Forums (You guys can now chat amongst yourselves)!
Better Content Management!
The Bad
Some formatting may appear wonky thanks to transferring from a non-Wordpress CMS.
You have to re-register.
Some images have not transferred over properly.
Any growth is painful and I fully expect the next week or so to be a bit of catch-up. We appreciate your patience throughout this trying time and will definitely make it worth your while with a contest that we will start up tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the ride (hey, E3 is not far away now so some really cool stuff should break soon)!
-GS
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem is a new racer from Meridian4 and Steel Monkeys. It allows up to six players to race around post-apocalyptic tracks and blow each other to smithereens. That’s about it. Oh – it is also only $9.99!
Okay, so that does not constitute a full review – but at its core you are getting just what I wrote. Does this mean the game is flaw-free? Far from it, as Steel Monkeys have developed a racing game here where the goal is to blow each other up, not take 1st place. It is a bit of a confusing gameplay mechanic – they are racing around, but why even have a track? Why not just make it an arena-based experience? The main reason for this, good or bad depending on your own tastes, is weapon collection.
Over the run of the track you will find various weapon reloads in the form of colored barrels. Each color signifies a different weapon. Each vehicle basically has three weapons – even though they change slightly between them. For instance, the small dune buggy can spew forth blue bricks of doom to fend off wolf packs while the motor-home lets fly with lawn flamingos (btw, Steel Monkeys, that kind of humor does not go unnoticed – fun stuff!).
Visually, the game has a very pretty graphics engine with crisp detail and enough graphics options to satisfy the PC gamer. Across levels you will find all manner of debris, from destroyed battle tanks to entire aircraft carriers! In the sound department, the game is no slouch either with tons of ambient noise as well as guttural rumblings and whining of the various vehicles.
In the end, Post Apocalytpic Mayhem is a somewhat limited experience where your real challenge and fun will come from racing your friends online. The single player mode doesn’t present much of a challenge and you will tire of the limited track selection after a few races down each of them. On the multiplayer front, you will find an adequate ranking system as well as a number of Steam Achievements to unlock.
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem is an inexpensive racing experience that will definitely entertain you and your friends. It is a simple gameplay experience, but you must consider that you are not spending $60 dollars on a AAA racing sim here. This is not Gran Turismo X or V or whatever number they are on now – this is post-apocalyptic fun. Enjoy!
For us fans of PC flight simulation, the ultimate goal has always been a realistic home cockpit with tons of switches, knobs, buttons, and levers to give us that extra edge and forever do away with having to use a keyboard.
The biggest question when approaching your home cockpit should first and foremost be: How much can I spend? In the world of flight sim peripherals, it is not unusual for realistic components to cost way over $500 dollars. Many remedy this by building their own gear which, I will touch upon later on in this review. For most people, however, they will not be able to go that route and will instead focus on purchasing equipment for their ‘pits. We are targeting this build for gamers with lower to mid-level budgets.
