Mass Effect 3 Publisher: EA Developer: Bioware Released: 9th March 2012 Xbox 360/PS3/PC (Xbox 360 reviewed)
Throughout the course of the Mass Effect series the life of Commander Shepard can be described in a single word: tumultuous. From his rise to importance in the early hours of the first title by gaining the prestigious rank of Spectre, to his death and rebirth working for a man he doesn’t know or trust, Shepard’s life has kind of been a stressful experience before you throw in the threat of species destroying sentient battleships in the form of the Reapers. Life has not been easy, and in the conclusion of the trilogy that changes in no way: it’s time to take back earth, fight or die.
Okay with the amount of stuff already leaked for Assassin’s Creed III, we have even more! Check out the first proper screenshots of the game and the protagonist who we now know is half English, half Native American. His English name being Connor and the native name being Ratohnhake. There’s also a buttload of guns, bows, tomahawks and swords on him, which makes him even more badass. All the screens can be found HERE.
Publisher: EA Sports Developer: EA Canada Released: 2nd March 2012 XBox 360/PS3
Today EA released SSX’s latest instalment and Uriel101 was very much looking forward to it, but from the flames of anticipation, disappointment was to follow. Firstly, the game-play feels unrewarding due to the ease of which you can pull stunts off turning tricking into a button bashing mash-up of X and Y with ‘Right-Trigger’ tweaking. Next, the graphics fall short of a next generation title, the level felt far to confined and repetitive, granted I did only play a handful. But the biggest disappointment is the quality of customisation, as gamers we’ve been spoilt with bountiful resources to create our online and in-game persona’s with which to slice, dice, shoot, conquer and grow, the best SSX could offer was variations on character skins (not even individual items, just the overall look) and attribute boosts on boards and equipment. SSX gets a 6/10 Reset Score and has left Uriel101 with a bitter after taste of disappointment
As announced HERE, along with the official Assassin’s Creed III cover art, is news of news coming Monday, which can be confirmed with the official countdown on the AC site HERE.
Check out an amazing new fan trailer of Street Fighter X Tekken, right here:
While the Silent Hill HD Collection was intended to be released next week, apparently the competition against Mass Effect 3 is just too much to face, with Konami putting the game back until March 20th. Downpour will still be released on March 13th.
On the subject of release dates, Bioshock: Infinite will be coming to a console near you on October 16th in the US and 19th worldwide.
Check out some new screenshots and art for the upcoming DmC from Ninja Theory:
What we have above is a leaked image of what is believed to be the main character in Assassin’s Creed III.
The image clearly features Native American influences, including a bow and arrow, headdress and necklace. The character is also wearing cowskin boots and holding what appears to be a Revolutionary pistol. This seems to confirm popular rumors that the third installment of Assassin’s Creed will be set in the American Revolution.
While there is no official confirmation from Ubisoft yet, the company announced earlier in the week that “major news about the AC series” was coming soon, so…. booyah!
Well guys, it’s been a while since we had a news update and lots to catch you up on, so let the games begin!
First up is a huge problem from the shop GAME: once the release of SSX has come and gone the store will officially stop stocking all forthcoming EA titles, which is a huge problem considering the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3. As such, all preorders of the game will be cancelled (including the fantastic looking N7 Collectors Edition!) and refunded. You can find Eurogamer’s article on it HERE and a picture of the letter explaining the situation HERE.
While we’re on the subject of Mass Effect, Bioware has been considering the idea of an ME MMO (booyah!) and here’s what they’ve said: “The implication of a Mass Effect MMO has so many expectations. We already bit off a big thing to chew with a Star Wars MMO, and that’s not so small, it’s daunting, but the neat thing is it would lend itself to a different type of game play. It’s fun to think about. It’s really interesting, I don’t know. It’s a tough one. When you deliver a game, and you deliver it for a player, you have to capture what they think is the possibility space, you need to let them do everything they think they should do, and you can’t block them from doing anything they think they should be able to do. You have to nail all the features and content that should be in that possibility space. Mass Effect is a big possibility space.”
And now, check out the latest (and live-action) trailer for Mass Effect 3… FIGHT!:
EA has announced the next instalment in the Medal of Honor series, with the most ridiculous title ever: Warfighter, coming out this October. It’s again being developed by Danger Close and featuring the Frostbite 2.0 engine, the same used in Battlefield 3 and following the Tier 1 group.
And while it’s customary in the Pokemon series to gain a third title after direct sequels (a la Pokemon Yellow after Blue and Red) Pokemon will be receiving direct sequels in the form of Pokemon Black 2 and White 2.
The latest trailer for Amazing Spider-Man has shown off both the games incarnation of the Rhino and also some official gameplay, and it looks pretty damn good on both accounts, check it:
And as you should all know at this point TheMercurialMan is a huge Sonic fan, so check out the gameplay trailer for Sonic 4: Episode 2:
IO Interactive game director Christian Elverdam has gone on record to reiterate the importance of player choice in Hitman: Absolution and how you can chose whether to play as the master of stealth or a full blown murderer: “The first thing is, if you don’t like it you can turn it off, but we’re getting feedback from user sessions, even people who have played all our games, and they actually like Instinct. It has less of an impact when you play it than you think; it just removes one layer of thought and puts it onto the game, so you’re looking at what’s going on right now, instead of thinking about other stuff.”
Independent game developers Super Fighter Team are now taking pre-orders for what is claiming to be the first SNES game released in the US since 1998, Nightmare Busters. There will only be 600 copies of the title made costing $60 a pop, plus shipping. The product will be manufactured from completely new materials. This means no existing game boards, cartridge shells or boxes will be ‘recycled’ from other products. Rather, everything will be produced by their factory individually. You can check out all the info on their site HERE.
Siliconera have released a concept animation video of Day 1 Studios’ (the guys behind F.E.A.R. 3 and Fracture) proposed Batman game, Gotham By Gaslight, set at the end of the 19th century with The Dark Knight hunting down Jack the Ripper, check it out because it looks like it could have been pretty good:
And while we’re on the subject of Jack the Ripper, click HERE to check out some concept art for Visceral Games proposed title The Ripper, where you were to play as Jack as a vampire hunter. The game was designed to be worked on after the release of Dead Space, but never came to fruition.
Get ready to, and I quote, JOY PUKE YOUR FACE OFF with the official launch trailer for Boderlands 2, giving a release date of September 18th:
Kurt Sutter of The Shield and Sons of Anarchy has tweeted about talking to games company about producing computer game based on the epic biker series, contemplating the idea of a “high-end browser-based game”.
The official Retro City Rampage vinyl album is now available from the official site HERE or you could also find it to download on Bandcamp HERE, check out a sample of it below:
And while we’re on the subject of awesome 8bit music check out the Daft Punk remix album Da Chip, which can be found right HERE, and also embedded below via Soundcloud:
Aaaaaaaaaaand…. I think we’re all caught up on the highlights of gaming news for the past week or so, hope you enjoyed guys!
Starting off the day let’s check out the newest story trailer for Max Payne 3, coming out March 15th in the US and May 18th in the UK:
Equally the official trailer for Amazing Spider-Man game looks like the title I’ve been waiting ever since Spider-Man 2:
We have some more details on the upcoming Resident Evil 6, some exciting, some disappointing (NO T-VIRUS?!):
The game is 50% complete.
RE6 doesn’t aim to return the series to its roots, despite the added horror atmosphere.
Capcom aims for this to be the “greatest” game in the series. Duh.
The third main character is being designed to relate to “young people.”
The president from the trailer is not Ashley’s father.
Set in the fictional Chinese coastal town of Lanshiang.
The zombies of RE6 are not spawned by the T-virus, but by something else. Despite being zombies, they can use weapons and will run or leap at players.
A new B.O.W is the J’avo.
These monsters can understand speech, work in groups, and will regenerate lost limbs. If damaged significantly, they can mutate their bodies like the Nemesis or Birkin.
You can move and shoot in the game … to a degree. A revamped control scheme allows you to slowly strafe from left to right while aiming. You’ll also be able to evade, take cover and perform the all-important 180 degree turn.
We have a new trailer for Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, this one being the official launch trailer, the game comes out on february 22nd (TheMercurialMan’s birthday, no less!)
Ninja Theory’s Tameem Antoniades has announced that there were originally plans to have not only single-player, but also multiplayer DLC for Enslaved: Journey to the West, but they, along with plans for an official sequel, were canned due to poor retail sales. See, gamers? This is why we can’t have nice things!
And as it seems to be trailer day at Reset today, check out the latest launch trailer for Syndicate, which frankly looks badass:
Two pieces of Assassin’s Creed news for you. Firstly, and obviously based around the third official addition to the series, Assassin’s Creed III, we have a release date! October 30th this year! While TheMercurialMan is dubious as to how good the quality can be so soon after Revelations (*cough*don’twanttogetboredoftheserieslikeCallOfDuty*cough*), the series has always been nothing but a pleasure to play through, so the new addition is causing much excitement.
Secondly, according to an update posted on the Xbox 360 Achievements site, it looks like the next DLC for Revelations will be single player, and also based around Desmond, which is a bonus as the multiplayer doesn’t really merit that much DLC. Jus’ sayin’.
Games Informer has reported that Twisted Metal will be the next game to receive the movie treatment, with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance co-director Brian Taylor being asked to write and direct.
Mojang boss and Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson has offered to fund a project by Double Fine boss Tim Schafer, offering to put up $13 million towards the creation of Psychonauts 2. While nothing is confirmed yet, the offer is there.
Check out the teaser for Mass Effect 3’s ‘Take Back Earth’ trailer, which, frankly, looks stunning. Reapers!:
Reset Gaming would like to take a moment of recognition for all the incredible work by Adam Adamowicz, who passed away this week. Helping design and create some of the most expansive, involving, detailed worlds in the history of gaming with such giants as Bethesda’s Fallout 3, and Skyrim. The industry has truly lost something special.
Edge Magazine is reported to have a wealth of information on Far Cry 3, making mention of an open-ended mission structure, and revealing more on the history of the protagonist, James Brody. All new information below:
When you pause Far Cry 3, you’ll see regular menu options
There is also “a blobby, butterfly-winged shadow of a Rorschach ink blot fill the screen, with peeks of lush foliage visible between splotches of darkness”
Open-ended combat
Plan bouts with enemies well before you face off
You may decide to charge in for a frontal attack, hang back and snipe enemies from a distance, or place C4 on the side of a jeep and send it to an enemy encampment
Freedom is tied to the story
Unlike Far Cry 2′s “hard-edged political cynicism”, Far Cry 3 is “a focus on the personal, charting one man’s spiral into violence, and quite possibly madness, on an archipelago where everyone else seems to have a head start”
One mission is “a hallucinatory push through an island’s underground caves”
In this mission, protagonist Jason Brody is injured and is searching for a doctor
Brody heads up a slope and encounters a wooden house; Dr. Earnhardt is inside
The doctor quickly administers an injection; he’s also “rambling to himself in a jittery, dreamy fashion”
Earnhardt asks Brody to gather some mushrooms from a cave system nearby
No shooting in this mission
Platforming/exploration instead
“Brody makes running jumps over precarious drops which can only be accessed through an underwater tunnel at the bottom of a cliff”
There are crumbling handholds
Things become unpredictable as you head into the caves’ depths
“Colors begin to saturate before changing hue entirely. Perspective becomes unreliable, and objects that appear within reach one moment suddenly shrink from view.”
Brody looks at his hands that are “leaving ephemeral trails as they move through the air”
Cave appears to be reshaping: walls become floors when he tries to climb them, plants pop up randomly
Eventually Brody locates the mushrooms; setting has become night
“Far Cry 3 isn’t going to be quite this psychedelic, but the scene clearly demonstrates the preoccupation with mental states that runs throughout the game”
Dr Earnhardt is crazy while the island’s enemies are unstable as well
Brody is beginning to lose his grip
Although Brody was your typical guy on holiday with friends/his girlfriend, he is now thrown into a situation “that threatens to send him off rails”
Players will have to contend with native fauna and domesticated animals - Dev. team wanted the game “to be emotional and raw”
Insanity was a word that came up often in early meetings
Producer Dan Hay: “When we really felt like we captured it was when we got Vaas. That’s when the word ‘insanity’ crystallized for us”
There are numerous villains in addition to Vaas
Vaas is “a sociopath, and very nearly a psychopath”
You’ll hear Dr. Earnhardt muttering about him
Guards seem to hint at a respect that’s built on fear
Vaas’s voice actor, Michael Mando, had auditioned for the role of a more typical villain who was six-foot-six, 300 pounds, stoic/series, and unemotional
Mando’s audition was completely opposite of what the team was looking for, and didn’t land the job
Even so, Mando’s agent called him three weeks later and told him that Ubisoft was willing to make a character based on the audition he did because they liked it so much
“There are hints that Vaas will be more than just a two-dimensional threat”
Ubisoft doesn’t think of Vaas as a sociopath/villain; he has a lot of pain, and “everything’s just an extension of that”
Not clear if Vaas is the one holding Brody’s loved ones captive
Next part of the demo involves Brody being sent in to interfere with Vaas’ communications
He has to shut down Medusa, the radio tower of a beached cargo ship
“It’s a set-piece designed to show off the fact that, despite Far Cry 3′s madness theme, the game is still, in Hay’s words, ‘a shooter first’”
Brody begins in the ocean, heads toward the beach, and quietly takes out a knife from a guard’s back pocket
He stabs him with the knife and follows this process for another guard
With a third guard, he throws the knife into his skull (seen in the E3 demo)
Since he’s fairly close to the boat, Brody takes out binoculars so he can assess the situation
Ubisoft is making the game with a “360 degree” design approach
Each scenario will contain “stealthy, action-focused and creative approaches”
“The sand is strewn with cover for those who wan an open-air gunfight, while stealthier players can hide within the exposed hold of another beached vessel as they move towards their goal”
Reinforcements arrive in hovercraft on the beach
There was one tester who found a hang-glider and approached the radio tower this way, which allowed him to avoid battle
Another mission has Brody looking for a friend; he has to invade a ship
More linear environment shown with fewer options, though it lets players experience “an ear-splitting shotgun at close quarters”
Brody opens the hold doors, causing an explosive booby trap to flood the ship
“His struggle to escape is the kind of scripted setpiece that makes up the entirety of games such as Call of Duty, and is more than a little reminiscent of a chapter of Uncharted 3″
Hay: “It wasn’t like we set out to make it on an island, but we wanted it to be a lawless frontier, we wanted it to be beautiful, all that stuff. The more we talked about it, and the kinds of experiences we wanted to have, the more we wanted the feeling of isolation.”
Game designer Andrea Zanni: “We have land animals and sea animals. They’ll be there as threats, they’ll be there for you to utilize – you can go out into the jungle and go hunting, which is all part of Jason growing and surviving on the island. If you go deep into the jungle, you’re going to have some encounters that may not be so pleasant. So they’re a part of the ecology of the island, and really making the island this savage place for the player.”
You’ll see a lizard during the cave mission
There are sharks circling floating bodies after there is an explosion in the ship mission
Hints from the team that there is a dark history to the archipelago
Open-world designer Jamie Keen: “It’s about making sure that the player is constantly feeling enabled by what you can do in the world and enabled by the world itself. You feel like the world’ inviting you to make you feel like you constantly want to move through it, constantly want to know more about what’s going on there. Recently, we put a mineshaft just on the way down to a lighthouse. And players heading to the lighthouse see it, and everyone just goes, ‘Oh look, a mineshaft!’ and they have to explore. We want to constantly surprise people [with] how much they’re going to find when they do go exploring and follow their nose.”
No weapon degradation
House of The Dead 3 is now available on the PSN for a mere $6.99 and, to be honest, you’d be a fool not to snap it up.
GameSpy is offering a plethora of free games of all genre right HERE, which goes alongside IGN’s free games a day offer, found on Twitter right HERE. Enjoy the treats.
And lastly for today we’ll leave you with the first screenshots of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4: EPISODE II! They feature the titular blue blur, Tails, Metal Sonic and the iconic special stages from Sonic 2, take a look for yourself but they’re incredible!:
Kicking off today’s segment we have some interesting news in regards to the PS Vita’s pricing. According to Sony a lot of titles will be ridiculously cheap, with Motorstorm RC coming out at just £4.79 and allow the game to be played on both Vita and PS3; Escape Plan will cost £9.99; and Super Stardust, Top Darts and Hustle Kings will all cost £6.49. These prices are a large difference from certain titles, with Uncharted: Golden Abyss being priced at around £40. Reportedly the console’s titles will continue to have very varied prices depending on how big they are.
The MGS: Snake Eater 3D demo will be coming to the Nintendo eShop this Thursday, and to celebrate it here’s a retrospective Bit Socket has done on Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
Reportedly Rockstar have not ruled out the option of carrying on the LA Noire series, despite the closer of Team Bondi, saying “While there won’t be any more DLC or additional content for the current release of L.A. Noire (we’re all too busy working on Max Payne 3, GTAV and other games to come), don’t count out the possibility of a new game in the L.A. Noire franchise in the future. We simply have not decided anything. We’re all very pleased with how that game turned out and are considering what the future may hold for L.A. Noire as a series. We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won’t get to them eventually – see Max and Red Dead for evidence of that – we have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing.” The company also reports that news of GTA V will be coming within the next few months.
And while we’re on the subject of GTA, the GTA IV PC graphics mod has released an update and a trailer showcasing the improved graphical quality, which can be seen below:
Footage of the Mass Effect 3 demo has been released prior to the demo release, TheMercurialMan hasn’t watched it yet because of the spoiler heavy content, but for those that just can’t wait the two videos will be linked below:
And lastly, a creative modder has worked on the previous Skyrim Portal reference showcasing how damn overused both the “arrow to the knee” and “spaaaaaace” memes have gotten with a not-too-subtle mod, funny stuff:
Take back Earth with the updated Mass Effect website, including new images and videos. Check it out HERE. At the same time, apparently you can already purchase the first piece of DLC for Mass Effect 3 in the US from GameStop, titled From Dust and costing $10, check out the article HERE.
Want to inject a little Portal into your Skyrim experience? You now can:
Double Fine announced that their new project, a ‘downloadable point-and-click graphic adventure game for the modern age’, would be funded via Kickstarter donations. The company was looking to reach the amount of $400,000, and has already exceeded that amount and reached $659,000 already! Donors will receive exclusive beta access, HD documentary downloads, a signed poster and more. Donations will be accepted until March 13th.
And while we’re on the subject of point-and-click, check out the trailer for Daedalic Entertainment’s PC horror game The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav:
According to MCV the insanely awesome looking Asura’s Wrath has been pushed back, now coming out in the UK on March 9th, which for those of you that don’t know is also the same day as Mass Effect 3 AND Street Fighter X Tekken.
Square Enix has trademarked something called Rebellion Overdrive. No news as to what it is has come out thus far, but rumours suggest it could be the online RPG announced by the company last year.
And lastly, a little beauty to leave you with… The official cover art for Aliens: Colonial Marines.
