Buttonbasher

The first trailer for Call of Duty: World at War has been released. It shows some of the new features of the game such as flamethrowers, and some hand to hand combat. The game will center around the Pacific theater of World War II. Also new is a 4 player co-op (both split-screen and online).

Call of Duty: World at War will be released before the end of Activision’s 2009 fiscal year.

KLind

Alone in the Dark is a franchise I remember well. I recall sitting in a dark room playing through the first game with its awkward controls, fighting off creatures of the night. The later installments didn’t seem to live up to the the feeling of the first one, but after a long break the series seems to have reinvented itself.

They seem to be doing a lot of things differently this time around. The game’s engine seems quite robust, and takes a real world approach to many things. Early looks at the game were presented via tech demo’s such as this one about the Fire system in the game:

With the framework in the place, the team divided the game up into a somewhat episodic format. While all of the content is included on the disc, the game’s mission system will be divided into episodes (complete with recap clips of previous episodes). You’re playing the continuing story of Edward Carnby (who bears a striking resemblance to former EGM writer Mark MacDonald). He’s searching for an explanation of the supernatural occurences that have been plaguing Central Park.

The atmosphere of the game seems like something special. Last year we had games like Bioshock and Portal which showed that the single-player only games were still alive and kicking. I think that since Alone in the Dark will benefit in the long run by focusing on single-player.

I plan on picking up the 360 version, but the Wii trailer actually entices me to give that one a try as well.

Alone in the Dark will be available on June 24th for PC, 360, Wii, and PS2, with the PS3 version releasing later this year.

KLind

Some of you might already be checking out the Spore Creature Creator Demo, but I thought people would want to see some of the differences between the full Creature Creator and the Demo. The Demo only contains 25% of the items available in the full Creator. I have snapshots of every item menu, some of which are coupled with the description (but not all due to technical difficulties).

The full Creature Creator launches Wednesday June 18th for 9.99

KLind

Meet Uncle Sofa:

Uncle Sofa knows how to get the party going. He was created using the Spore Creature Creator.

The Spore Creature Creator is but a crumb of crust from the pie that is Spore. The name is pretty literal as all you do in it is create creatures. But unlike a normal character creator, this one will hold your attention for quite a while. In most games I tend to select the most normal looking character, or the polar opposite; the entire process taking around a minute. I’ve been playing around with the Spore Creature Creator for the past seven hours without getting bored.

What sets this apart from most character creation software is the feeling that you’re actually creating something unique compared to choosing Face 5, Body 4, and Haircut 9. The feeling of working with the tool is most comparable to playing with modeling clay. You sculpt out the body and begin adding features to it. There’s no correct answer as to where any of the items are supposed to go. Do you want your creature to have it’s face on it’s back? Go for it. Want every surface of it to be covered in Mouth’s? Do it. Want an upside down head? I sure did! So I did it:

(Funtime Lenny)

One of the coolest parts of the program is the many ways available to share your creatures with your friends. In the “Test Drive” where you make your creation walk around, dance, emote, you can click a button on the UI to take a picture.

(Max from Sam and Max)

If your friends aren’t impressed by things that don’t move, you can click another button to create an animated gif of your creature doing wacky things.

Finally, the feature that impressed me most was the ability to record videos of my creature (in this case Uncle Sofa) doing things, and automatically being able to upload them to Youtube all in game.

After creating a creature you can name it, give a brief description, and upload it to the Sporepedia where anyone can download your creature. You download a PNG image of the creature you want and when that’s put into the game, it’s recognized and automatically loads as a 3D creature for you to tweak and modify.

More than anything the Creature Creator makes me extremely excited for the full release of Spore. Thinking of the possibilities of evolution and cross-breeding with my pre-existing character palate makes me grin ear to ear.

A colony of Uncle Sofa exploring the cosmo’s in search of a more habitable environment for it to colonize… I can’t wait!

The Spore Creature Creator will be released on June 17th, with a free trial coming at the same time. Spore fully releases on September 7th.

Take us home Uncle Sofa:

KLind

Famitsu scans of Resident Evil 5 hit the internets today. No translation but some Japanese speaking dynamo has grabbed a few tidbits from the article:

- A new trailer will be shown in the very near future.
- For now, Famitsu will show images and some info from one part of that trailer. (intro paragraph written by Takeuchi)
- There’s a new female character, shown holding a shotgun and wearing a tank top and boots similar to the ones Jill wore in RE3.
- In addition to areas that make use of sunlight as a gameplay dynamic, there will be darker, shadow-filled areas as well, such as a cavern where Chris utilizes a flashlight. There will be an intense contrast between light and dark.
- Chris is shown using his knife, a sniper rifle above a bridge that’s above a river, and of course the handgun.
- A few pieces of artwork are shown, such Chris fighting villagers near a crashed helicopter, that same helicopter flying amidst a smoke-filled sky, and Chris witnessing the helicopter being shot down. There’s also some kind of garden in the cavern with a giant hole above it, allowing the sunlight in.
- Chris is shown holding a blond girl noticeably shorter than him in a building.
- A picture of a chainsaw and the right leg of its weilder is shown.
- Chris will be up against very powerful enemies once again, and this shot of some creature behind iron bars is reminiscent of Chris’s previous enemies, such as CODE: Veronica’s Nosferatu (although it was Claire who faced him) and the REmake’s Lisa Trevor.
Those two creatures were imprisoned at some point as well.

And here are the scans:

The zombies look more like zombies!

First off, F YEAH!

We got a small whiff of what Rare was cooking in their VIP barns when they showed a teaser for what looked like a new Banjo title around X06. Well now they’ve gone and given us a taste of Nuts & Bolts. Slowly, things have made themselves clearer in the past few days. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts isn’t a racer as was speculated upon when two screenshots showed up on the internets depicting Banjo in a variety of vehicles. Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that its not entirely a racer, but not entirely a platformer.

Now there are dozens of screenshots, an official press release, and even a video or two. According to Rare, they’ve gone and made a new type of game with Nuts & Bolts, some kind of a vehicular platforming adventure. Basically theres good old fashioned Banjo platforming with the addition of customizable vehicles that help you complete objectives in order to keep the ownership deeds to Spiral Mountain. I could go on about the new art style, incredible graphics, and the deep vehicle customization mechanic, but instead I’ll let the the screens and videos speak for themselves.

More here

Nuts & Bolts is set to ship this November.

PS2 and Wii owners will be getting an expansion disc for Rock Band this July. Better than no DLC.

• 30 Seconds to Mars — “The Kill”
• All American Rejects — “Move Along”
• Blink – 182 — “All the Small Things”
• Boston — “More Than a Feeling”
• David Bowie — “Moonage Daydream”
• Faith No More — “We Care A Lot”
• Grateful Dead — “Truckin’”
• The Hives — “Die, All Right!”
• KISS — “Calling Dr. Love”
• Lynyrd Skynyrd — “Gimme’ Three Steps”
• Nine Inch Nails — “March of the Pigs”
• Oasis — “Live Forever”
• Paramore — “Crushcrushcrush”
• The Police — “Synchronicity II”
• Queens of the Stone Age — “Little Sister”
• Ramones — “Teenage Lobotomy”
• Smashing Pumpkins — “Siva”
• Stone Temple Pilots — “Interstate Love Song”
• Weezer — “Buddy Holly”
• Wolfmother — “Joker & the Thief”

Needs more Metal/Trash/Hard/Progressive Rock.

And here’s hoping for a Doolittle release.

Source

This week Epic shows up to the Steam party and it brought the Unreal collection which includes all the previous Unreal games leading up to the recent Unreal Tournament III. You’ll get 10% off everything until March 24 including the Unreal Deal (heh, rhymes) which is priced just a few bucks above UT3, and includes the other four games. I’d go for that if I were you.

-Urb4n Z0mb13

Life can sure be hard when your arm is infected by satanic powers. Sure, you’ll gain the ability to use it as a grappling arm, and be able to make it really big to punch large foes, but it can be a real put off to the ladies.

Thus is the story of Nero, A trench coat clad, white haired lad that has a blue demonic arm (affectionately called the “Devil Bringer”). Nero leads the story of Devil May Cry 4. Fan’s of the series will notice that there has been a change up. Normally players assume the role of Dante, a similar trench coat clad white haired lad, that also has ties to demonic power. Early on in the game (shortly after Nero runs to church, kicking creatures with swords for legs on the way), you’ll find that Dante isn’t missing from this installment. He makes his grand entrance by attacking the church leader, just as Nero makes his way in. With a new found rival, and a dead clergyman, the events of Devil May Cry 4 are set into motion.

The average player could play the game by furiously mashing the attack buttons, but the real fun of the combat comes by generating combos. It’s satisfying to launch your opponent into the air with your sword, juggle him mid-air with bullets, jump up in the air to join him with aerial sword attacks, and finish him off by using your demon arm to throw him to the ground. There are weapon and skill upgrades throughout the game, but if you don’t want to get into all of that you can set it to automatically upgrade you.

The first half of the game was very enjoyable. The enemies are fun to fight, and try combos on. The bosses are larger than life, and present interesting challenges. The problem is that once you make your way to the final area, something happens to Nero and you begin playing as Dante. While it’s interesting to see how the two differ in playstyles, what’s not as interesting is the environments you’ll find yourself traversing. Dante’s missions are basically everything Nero just did, but backwards. You go in reverse order through the same levels, fighting the same foes and bosses. Once this is done, you get back to controlling Nero. The next mission is fighting the bosses a third time, working your way up to the the final boss. Sure they’re much easier to take down at this point, but I really think Capcom could have expanded the variety a bit more. Despite repeating content, what’s available is fun.

The production value of the game makes it feel like a summer action movie, with epic battles, a love story, and fairly good acting. The orchestrated music can really complement serious scenes, and when you’re locked in the heat of combat the music will reflect that situation with an offering of rock. The voice acting in the gorgeous cutscenes is equally good. Seeing the graphics that the game pulls off makes me extremely excited to see what future Capcom games will look like (Resident Evil 5, I’m talking about you).

Overall I’m pretty satisfied with what Devil May Cry 4 offers. Besides some backtracking complaints, I can’t really think of many other issues I had with the game. Having never played a Devil May Cry game before, I didn’t feel overwhelmed due to lack of knowledge of the universe. I played it on Human (Easy) mode, but I plan to replay it on a Harder difficulty to see what’s different. If you’re a fan of the series, or a newcomer, I really recommend checking this game out.

KLind

The Xbox 360’s Fall Dashboard update is hitting your console December 4th. New features include:

•  Xbox Originals- Downloadable Original Xbox games
• Xbox LIVE Arcade Hits-Repricing of best sellers
• Inside Xbox- Xbox News Ticker
• Enhanced online profile – Lets you share your name, state, and short bio.
• Expanded Friends List access – View friends friendslists.
• Enhanced Parental Controls – Lets parents limit game time with a parental timer.
• New video features – Full Screen movie previews and DivX 5.0 Support
• Easy-to-use navigation features – Reorganized Dashboard, mainly Marketplace.

Full List can be found here.

KLind