Blog Archives
New Sleeping Dogs Gameplay
With August fast approaching I thought it was about time I take a look at one of my most anticipated games of next month, Sleeping Dogs. The game looks to have been very much inspired by a combination of Asian and Hollywood action movies, with brutal hand to hand combat, gun play and fast paced vehicle sequences combining to create what looks to be a very impressive game.
The folks over at Machinima just posted a pretty sweet little video that provides us with a walk through of a mission called Mrs. Chu’s Revenge. Apparently she ain’t a lady you want to annoy.
From this video, and the other footage I have seen, the game very much looks to be in the vein of GTA, Saints Row and the True Crime series, featuring a big open world for the player to get lost in. The combat looks slick and pretty brutal though the fact that most of the NPC’s seemed to just wait in line to get pummeled is a little concerning, hopefully they will be able to put up more of a fight in the finished game.
The Driving sections also look pretty nice and I like the slow-mo mechanic that gets used while the player is taking out his enemies. In the GTA and Saints Row series I always found that particular mechanic to be a little annoying. Anyway, Sleeping Dogs has been confirmed for release on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC over in North America on August 14th with a slightly later release date of the 17th for those of us in Europe.
Halo 4 Update
There was some good news from Halo Waypoint this week with word coming out that 343 Industries have officially entered ‘super crunch time’ for Halo 4. What’s super crunch time you ask? Well it basically means that the game is now almost fully playable and that the developers are entering the final stages of polishing and bug crushing. This is good news as it more or less rules out the chance of the game’s launch being delayed.
In other news from Waypoint, the production team shooting the live action series Forward Unto Dawn has apparently wrapped up their shooting schedule and are now moving into the post production/editing phase. The series will consist of five 15 minute episodes telling the story of a UNSC soldier who eventually becomes the commander of the UNSC Infinity. Oh and Master Chief will almost definitely be making an appearance too (see the pic above).
The web series will begin airing on July 2nd on Machinima’s new channel Machinima Prime which you can subscribe to via the latest episode of IG Daily (there is a link toward the end of the video). The series will also be aired on Halo Waypoint which can be accessed from your PC here or from the app on the Xbox 360 and probably your phone if you have a Windows device.
The last bit of info that came out this week was about one the ten multi-player maps that will be shipping with the game, Longbow. Here is the official short description from Halo Waypoint and a couple of screen shots:
NAME: LONGBOW
LOCATION: Northern regions of the planet Concord.
DESCRIPTION: Located in the northern polar region of the planet Concord, the frigid climate and unique gravitational conditions provide an optimal perch for Longbow Station’s channel-based mass drivers. Before the Covenant War, the UEG launched deep space monitoring relays from here in an effort to study far-flung star systems.
The Map was designed to showcase an as yet unannounced game mode but from the screen shots it certainly looks to be more of an outdoor type map with plenty of room for vehicle combat. We have also seen game play footage from the map as well during E3 (skip to 18 seconds in for the Longbow footage) which shows off one area of the map which can be seen in the screen shots above.
Anyway that’s probably enough Halo news for now but be sure to check back here next week when I will be sharing my thoughts on the first episode of Forward unto Dawn and any other news that comes my way.
Dead Space 3 Screens Released
Website allgamesbeta.com recently posted a bunch of screen shots from the next installment in EA’s Dead Space franchise. I have included one of them below but hit the link to see the whole lot, they are pretty cool looking. The shots feature both Issac Clark and his new partner Sgt. John Carver (as well as a necromorph) who recently made his debut in a motion comic released earlier this week (here!).
I suppose the question these new pictures raise (in my mind at least) is whether or not the inclusion of a coop campaign is a good idea. Story and gameplay wise it could go either way. The other games in the series have always been solo experiences and that played into the feeling of isolation you felt as you crept down the dimly lit halls waiting for the next jump scare. Coop will definitely diminish this in my opinion, but I don’t think that will necessarily make it a bad game, it will probably be less scary however unless the dev’s come up with some way to compensate.
Hopefully the coop will work better than the multiplayer component of Dead Space 2, which was an unmitigated disaster, and that’s me being polite, and really only seemed to exist so EA could charge for an online pass. Presumably the new coop system is coming at the expense of the multiplayer component but to me this raises the question of whether EA will charge for an online pass to enable an online coop system. I don’t think that they could get away with that although it would not surprise me in the least to see them try.
Darksiders II: Death Strikes Trailer
Subscribers to THQ’s newsletter will have received a rather cool email this morning including a new trailer for Darksiders II as well as details of what you can expect to see in the collector’s edition of the game. Part 2 of Death Strikes see’s our ‘hero’ Death taking on a horde of foes before taking down a pretty massive beasty, all while showing off his true form complete with skeleton wings and a huge scythe.
The Collectors Edition, which is apparently only available for pre-order, will include:
- Limited Edition copy of Darksiders II
- Replica Life-sized Death Mask
- Unique in game Armor set & Weapon
- Darksiders II Digital Soundtrack
- Hardcover Art Book
I want that mask so bad its not even funny but the other gem here will probably be the art book. I love nothing more than peeking behind the production curtain, and seeing how the appearance of the games characters and environments have evolved from concept to screen is particularly fun for me. Darksiders II is due for release this August.
Preview: Minecraft for Xbox 360
Regular readers here will probably know by now that I am a bit of a fan of Mojang’s fabulous Minecraft, as such it would be remiss of me to not put up a post letting you know that this week sees the release of the Xbox 360 version which will be available on Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday 9th of May. The highly talented guys over at Hatfilms put together a trailer (which can be seen below) as well as some preview game play that can be seen at their website or on their YouTube channel.
I am hoping to have a review up soon after the games release so be sure to check back here soon! Also let me know if any of you want to play some coop when the game comes out as there looks to have been a lot of effort put into the multiplayer mode and it looks pretty fun.
