THE WITCHER 2: MOST REALISTIC ENVIRONMENTS IN HISTORY OF RPG’S?

Do you know much about The Witcher? I sure don’t. But the statement about the most realistic environments in history has got my attention. I mean, we should take that with a grain of salt right? Every new game that comes out is usually better and badder than the next it seems. But it’s sort of like every new blockbuster movie that comes out each week. For that one week, they get to run new trailers that say, “The number one movie in America” blah blah blah. Well of course it’s number one. You didn’t go up against any other blockbuster movie! You went up against Megan Fox’s new cheeseball cheerleader horror flick, or maybe your movie came out up against ‘Finally the Final Destination Finale… Part 5’. Or whatever.

Anyway, just because you say you’re number one, or you have the best of the best environments or graphics, doesn’t necessarily make it true. It’s all in the eyes of the gamers. People go ga–ga over Gears of War and the Unreal Engine, and it does absolutely nothing for me. It’s all opinion. Still though, that’s is quite a statement to say. Maybe it’s just an RPG thing. From what I have seen in this video, it does look quite impressive. The Day & Night cycle looks interesting and I love it when I’m playing a game where shadows of clouds pass by on the ground. I feel that makes a game more immersive for me. Similar to animated trees, but even more effective.

So what do you think about this video? Think it will have the most realistic environments in RPG history? Or is the developer just proud of his game and wants to talk it up as much as possible?

‘SNOOPY FLYING ACE’ COMING TO XBLA IN 2010

Back in November 2008, I wrote an article about Smart Bomb Interactive’s New Snoopy game gunning to be top dog. At the time, there were no specifics. What platform would this game be released on? Will there be online gameplay? And by far the most important, can you play as the mighty and all powerful Woodstock? Yea, I said Woodstock. What?

With no specifics at all, I could tell that a lot of thought and effort was going into this game and trash me for liking Snoopy, but this game looks badass. No, I don’t care what you say. This game deserves a chance. It looked good back then, and it looks even better now. If the gameplay on this Xbox Live Arcade trailer doesn’t get you excited at all, there is something wrong with you. Xbox Live Arcade is one of the best, if not the best feature Microsoft has added to their console. I don’t know what I would do without it and in fact, I enjoy more games on XBLA than their $60 counterparts. Snoopy Flying Ace may add to the list of reasons why.

So what’s the basic idea behind this game?

Excerpt from GamerBytes: (Since I couldn’t explain it any better)

“The game is, for the most part, an aerial dog fighting game where you and 15 other players can fight each other online. The game will support 9 different modes including airborne Rugby, and will also include a challenge mode that is playable by yourself or in local or online coop. You can also choose from 12 members of the original Peanuts crew, or use your Xbox Live Avatar.”

Another game to use your avatar sounds pretty sweet to me. And in the original post I did in November, I mentioned you could end up getting out of the plane you’re flying and the flying game turns into a platformer. No word on this still being the case, but either way, Snoopy’s new adventure looks like a lot of fun.

For those of you about to hate on me, I”ll probably end up seeing you playing online. Watch out, I will be aiming for you.

NEW APB TRAILER: START A WAR

Say what you will about Crackdown, that game was damn fun! I just wish Realtime Worlds developed the game deeper than they did. There was so much they could have done with DLC, but all they gave the fans were a few new vehicles and called it a day. With so much space in this city, why not give us a flying vehicle of some sort at least? I still don’t get that.

Anyway, All Points Bulletin may be the game I’ve been waiting for. Basically, it looks like Crackdown on steroids. Which is obviously a good thing. I like how they are taking ideas from other open world games and implementing them into APB. Like the deep character customization of Saints Row 2. I thought that was one of their best features, and Realtime Worlds is taking that idea and developing it further. Create your own characters, your own gang, your own war. All online, with hundreds of other players. Play as the criminals, or play the good guys trying to stop the criminals. Me likey!

Looks like it’s only for the PC for now though. If you’re interested, try signing up for their beta testing.

HALO 3: ODST GAMEPLAY TRAILER

I meant to post this last week but somewhere along the way, I lost my mind. But if you still have yours, then chances are you have already seen the new gameplay trailer for the “I can’t believe it’s coming so fast” September release of Halo 3: ODST. Woo hoo! It’s already August, can you believe it?! Another great video you should check out, if you haven’t already downloaded it for free on Xbox Live Marketplace, is the new ODST Vid Doc that Bungie creates before each game. Bungie has definitely figured out how to work this finely tuned hype machine. I love it!

From the gameplay video above, you can see things have definitely changed from the original Halo 3. It remains to be seen if these changes are for the better. Chances are, they are. In the end though, does it really matter? I mean, I’m going to buy it either way. However, there is one thing I noticed in here that really, really bothers me. It’s the same thing that pissed me off about Ghost Recon 2. The highlighting of characters. The colored outline of all your enemies and even friendlies. I just don’t get why developers need to do that. I understand what Bungie is going for with the new ODST HUD, and his “magical powers” of seeing things through his helmet.. but it turns me off. Hopefully we find out there is a bigger reason for why they implemented this change and I hope it’s a feature you can turn on and off if you don’t find it necessary to use during gameplay. That’s my only gripe about the changes so far. I can’t wait to get ahold of those new weapons though! Cheers my friends..

NECESSARY FORCE DEBUT GAMEPLAY TRAILER

I hope, somehow, someway, this game is still alive even though the developers, Midway Newcastle, have been shut down since the last time I discussed their videogame trailer. Warner Bros. bought out most of game developer Midway, except for Midway San Diego and Midway Newcastle. But there are still trailers being released for the game they were working hard on right before they closed down, Necessary Force. So what’s going on? Wish I had the answer. Not sure I, or anyone else will get an answer to what will happen with this game.

Until then, all we can do is speculate and enjoy the gameplay video above. It’s not crazy impressive as some videos have been lately, but you can tell it is still in an early stage of development and needed some obvious tweaks. When an enemy you chase just stands there waiting for you to beat him to a pulp, you know the AI still needs a lot of tweaking. With that said, any game that is inspired or somehow resembles Max Payne, is a good thing. This game had hope. Maybe it still does, but again… all speculation.

Credit: CinemaBlend.com

SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON UPDATES

Boy oh boy oh boy! I don’t know about you guys but I love days like this. When so much is happening in the video game world, I just got to stuff most of the updates into one post. Most of you are probably keeping track of the latest Comic-Con news so you may have already seen what I’m about to publish. While I don’t think any of you were excited about the ‘New Moon’ panel yesterday, there were other, more important things happening that I’d like to share with you. Way more important. (Sorry to any ‘Twilight’ fangirls out there) Some of the more impressive things in my humble opinion are shown below. Check it out!

First off, we finally got to see some Borderlands gameplay, and not only that, we got an official release date: October 20. The trailer looks pretty good and I’m diggin‘ the Crackdown-esqe art style. RPG and Shooter mix of genres? Well it’s been done before. Mass Effect was an good example of that but Borderlands looks to go way beyond what Mass Effect did. Adding 4 Player Co-Op is probably the smartest feature any game developer can add these days. With online powerhouse Xbox Live and now the PlayStation Network is more than capable of competing with the online giant, it just doesn’t make sense to not have some type of well thought out multiplayer mode like this. It is a must have for me if you want me, as a consumer, to purchase your game. Otherwise, it will be a rental. And I will probably trash your game on my blog for not including it.

Another possible must have game may be, surprisingly, the new Splinter Cell: Conviction. I enjoyed the first couple of Splinter Cell games but it got really dull after a while. For me, I’m a fan of the runnin‘ ‘n gunnin‘, Halo style if you know what I mean. Call of Duty 4 anyone? So for me to be patient to take out enemies in a game like this? Nuh uh. Not going to happen. I understood how the game was supposed to be played but I still couldn’t help myself from killing enemies when I wasn’t supposed to and ending up alerting other enemies who ended up killing me very quickly. That’s just not the kind of game I can get into. This is why I am hoping the game takes a slight turn and doesn’t depend so much on the stealthy gameplay. Who knows? Maybe it’s still the same gameplay style, and maybe I do have more patience for it now that I’m older? We shall soon see. Actually, one of my instructors at VanArts, Marco, is working at Ubisoft and is working on Splinter Cell: Conviction. I wonder if I could interview him in the future? I think I’ll send him an email, that would be an awesome article. He is one funny French Canadian.

Finally, one of the bigger news stories yesterday was the news about the Halo anime miniseries, by 343 Industries and many other companies. For me, I’m not an anime fan. Not at all really. But I know a lot of people are, including my buddy DIGGITY. The style of cartoon is something you need to grow up with. While I can say I did grow up with it, because I was raised in the 80’s and it was quite hard to miss on TV, I just didn’t get into it all hardcore like other people. Which is why I am kind of excited about the Halo anime, Halo Legends. Maybe it will be my gateway into becoming a fan? So far, I like what I see.

What do you guys think? Comic-Con is already turning out to be quite epic. Wish I didn’t procrastinate and fail to buy tickets in time. I’m such a fool!

DANTE’S INFERNO: GO TO HELL!

Video Games | Dante’s Inferno | Exclusive Gameplay Revealed Trailer

Playstation 3

What’s God of War? That just may be your reaction after you play Visceral Games new IP, Dante’s Inferno. This game looks like it could be a visually disturbing delight but looks like it could also be quite immersive. I’m starting to get real excited for this one.

If you pay close attention, you can see that the blood color is not your typical color of red, green, or even purple. It makes sense to use a more lava-orange color considering the location of Dante’s Inferno, and it is in these small but powerful details that could set this game apart from it’s obvious God of War competition. Though this looks amazing and as of this point I can see myself purchasing this on day one, I have said that before. Lately the “must haves” have been quite a disappointment. Hey Visceral, EA? Don’t disappoint us. Especially with all that hype.

Gamestop has Dante’s Inferno shipping on December 1, 2009.