Anyone wo has played COD4 knows COD5 will take many of its good ideas and try to expand on them. The perks here are not as cool judging by the fact we have been transported back to the 19-fucking-40s, but nevertheless they are very similar. It is also hinted that players will have upgrade perks just like COD4, which again means we get another great game just in the most played out time period in gaming.
Recon Plane (3 Kills):
Kill three enemies without dying and you are given the ability to call in a recon plane to mark enemies temporarily on your radar map. The only enemies that won’t appear are ones using the Reconnaissance perk.
Artillery Strike (5 Kills):
Kill five enemies without dying and you are given the ability to call in an artillery strike. This is very similar to the Airstrike command in COD4, however, instead of a line of bombs going off, the area in which you select for the drop is completely obliterated in a long series of cannon fire.
Unleash the Dogs (7 Kills):
Kill seven enemies without dying and you enable the ability to call in attack dogs, which will sniff out any enemies on the map. Unlike COD4, attack dogs will find you regardless of where you hide, making it exceedingly difficult to avoid them. Furthermore, killing the attack dogs will only save you temporarily as the hounds will respawn if killed until their time/kill limit has expired.
While playing around with all kinds of new things at EA last Friday, I was greatly impressed with MySims Kingdom. The same cannot be said for SimAnimals, a new exploration for the Sims team. You assume a god-like role and control a small parcel of land with the goal of having various animals move in and call your local home. If it sounds boring, you’re mostly right.
Unfortunately, SimAnimals did not sit with me the same way any Sims title has previously. Making animals and plants happy isn’t my idea of a good time, and the demo seen at EA confirmed my initial thoughts. Even though the game has a good deal of variety with the various animals and topographies, very little excitement is to be had other than seeing squirrels get eaten by bears and wolves.
There are times when games get a ton of hype and fall short of expectation. There are other times when games that don’t make large blips on your radar jump up to surprise you. MySims Kingdom falls in the latter category. During my recent trip to EA, I got some hands on time with the sequel to the last year’s MySims.
Let’s be honest, the first MySims wasn’t all that terrific last year when it came out for the Wii and DS. Being the first Sims game on the Nintendo platforms, there was a distinct lack of polish. The gameplay was repetitive with recruiting various Sims to live in your town and there was a distinct lack of a story. Loading times were also very prevalent when entering and exiting buildings. These two big issues were addressed by the development team at EA with MySims Kingdom.
We were skeptical at first for the T rating, but from what the gameplay has shown us so far, MK vs DC looks to steal some thunder away from SF IV. The fatalities have looked great and the brutalities from the superheroes are cooler than expected. Hit the jump for the complete cast of characters from each universe. I would expect surprises from these guys. No MK game has ever been just what is on the surface.
I’ve had a chance to spend some time with the upcoming title NBA 09 The Inside for the PSP. I’ve enjoyed Sony’s basketball series for a couple years, so I was looking forward to see what kind of changes they’ve worked in for this iteration.
Last year, NBA 08 was the best show in town on the PSP. The NBA Live series has never really caught hold on Sony’s handheld while Sony’s own series has done fairly well. NBA 08 was decent, but nowhere near as good as it’s console big brothers. It held it’s own for a portable basketball solution, though. However, with NBA 09 The Inside, Sony looks to up the ante.
If you have any questions about the upcoming monster title, watch this. The game was feared to be lame, watered down, and a hackneyed attempt at cashing in on a dying franchise. Nope. This game is looking better everytime I hear or see something new about it. No word on Aquaman as of right now. It’s not looking good for the Butters of the Superfriends.
Even casual fans of SW:TFU are eagerly waiting the inevitable demo that is coming our way. We have been told its August, but an exact date has not been revealed. More importantly, the demo will have content that is not in the full version. Pretty awesome. This is great news because we won’t get some half-assed walkthrough or a random level only to end when the game gets good. NG2 anyone? There will be an ending to the demo that we all can enjoy. It will be on both XBL and PSN. Listen up for the exact date. Force lightning in a Wookie’s ass FTW.
Dead Space: Downfall is an animated film based on the upcoming space horror game from EA of the same name. Looks like EA is helping market Dead Space by releasing a full length movie to help fill in some of the backstory to the game. Looks pretty damn good and gory.
Tera Patrick, better known as an adult film “actress” has joined up with the Saints Row 2 Dev Team. No one knows the exact reason, but we can safely bet that its to add to the game’s marketability. I heard somewhere that gamers like porn, not sure how true that is, but I’ll get some answers. She will be at Comic Con in San Diego to look hot and cocktease all the fanboys staring at her and making memory deposits in their spank banks. The GTA IV craze has somewhat diminished, but I can’t see Saints Row 2 even coming close to matching up with Rockstar’s instant masterpiece.
We were all rife with girlish delight when MK vs DC was confirmed. Then we were told no fatalities and a T rating and everyone went back to flaccid. Ed Boon, father of the MK franchise has clarified a few things for us. There will be fatalities but not for everyone. Some of the DC characters are more lenient than others and rarely kill, so they will have a brutality instead. No idea which DC characters will be more pacifistic, but we can speculate. Batman, Flash, Superman, these guys rarely killed anyone. The game will be a Teen rating so don’t expect a bloodbath.
Certain animations, blood effects, and sound effects that we have in the game are really pushing the T-rating envelope,” he said. We’re sure gore hounds will find this worthy of debate, but we’re more concerned about everything that happens before the fatality.
We are all waiting and hoping this is not the letdown of the year.
We're like Spaceballs... we're making Loot Ninja everything. Coming soon we'll have hats, shirts, hoodies, possibly banana hammocks if one Editor has his way...
Check out the shirt prototypes here and the hats here
