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!
The Gamer Report 