Yesterday on Major Nelson’s podcast Dan Bunting of Treyarch released news of First Strike, Black Ops’ first map pack DLC. The first DLC will hit Xbox first come February 1, 2011, then eventually trickle over to Playstation 3 possibly a month later like it usually has. The map pack will include four multiplayer maps and one zombie map and be in the price range of about $15 or 1200 Microsoft Points.
Discovery – An abandoned research facility in the Antarctic, similar to the one in the campaign mode.
Kowloon – Set in Kowloon, China on the roof tops, again similar to the stage in campaign mode.
Stadium – Staged at an American hockey rink.
Berlin Wall – A battle at Checkpoint Charlie at this historical
Prophecies in the history of the Perfect World have always foretold that the end will come. All of the beautiful lands, the peaceful oceans, everything will be destroyed. That time has come.
“The land of Perfect World will suffer destruction the likes of which has never been seen. The world will be torn apart, leaving massive crevasses across its surface. The oceans will rage with turmoil and the tides will swallow everything in their path. The races of the world, thrown into chaos, will not understand what is happening to their beautiful world.”
Now, the humans, winged elves, Tideborn and the Untamed must find a way to save the world from this pre-determined destruction. That is where the Earth Guard race come in. These people had hidden themselves away for a long time, waiting for this day to come.
Perfect World International’s newest expansion: Genesis introduces a new race called the Earth Guard with two new classes: the Mystic and the Seeker. The Mystic will have the ability to use the power of nature to cast strong spells and buffs along with being able to summon creatures to fight with them. The Seeker will be a strong warrior that will be able to fight with a giant two-handed claymore.
For those of us that have already been introduced to the game, there will also be new lands added to the world map which means a lot more for Territory Wars. New Manufacturing skills such as Polishing Mastery and even a new feature for guilds so they can actually have their own establishment as well as guild-member only gifts.
For more information, please be sure to check out Perfect World International’s expansion site at http://pwi.perfectworld.com/expansion
This last week Spike hosted the Video Game Awards. Along with a great show, a plethora of games were announced that are making gamers look forward to sequels in the worst way possible. If you missed the VGA’s don’t worry, I’m here to re-cap what was shown and a small break down of each game, so let’s get started.
inSane: Due out in 2013, Guillermo del Toro’s sick and twisted world is coming to consoles. Planned to be a trilogy, del Toro, wants to give gamers a game where decisions that they make in game will question their own morals. Not much else is known yet about inSane yet but as soon as we find out more, we’ll definitely inform you.
Thor: Sega’s bringing out the hammer, Mjolnir to be exact, in Thor the video game. The god of thunder will be exploring the Norse mythological world battling legendary foes like Ulik, Yamir, and forest giants, and trolls. Due out Summer 2011, Thor will be lighting up the Xbox 360, Wii, DSi, and Playstation 3.
SSX: Deadly Descent: EA’s resurrecting a old favorite SSX. From what we saw the SSX series is stepping away from the animated style and going with a more serious feel. Winged suits and helicopters seemed to be introduced into the game to help players dominate the numerous and fierce mountain ranges.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Bethesda and Gamebryo dropped a huge sequel bomb. Elder Scrolls V will be a direct sequel to 2006’s Oblivion. Skyrim, home of the Nords that was mentioned in past games will now be playable come November 11, 2011.
Protoype 2: Murder your maker… That seems to be the big theme in Protoype 2. You play as infected Sgt. James Hellen, who’s out for Alex Mercer’s head. Scour the infested New York streets in search of your maker, while doing so become the ultimate weapon.
Batman Arkham City: Professor Hugo Strange, warden of Arkham City, knows a dirty little secret about Batman, but the Dark Knight has other worries at hand. The walled off city within Gotham is restless with the criminals of the old asylum along with new ones entering all the time. Behind the curtains of convicts, Two Face plots hes devious plan to execute Catwoman somewhere in the lovely little town of Arkham City.
Uncharted 3 – Drake’s Deception: Nathan Drake is back and this time around he’s looking for the lost city of Iram. With the help of Sully, they’ll travel through the Arabian peninsula and the Rub’ al Khali desert searching for treasures come November 1, 2011.
Forza Motorsport 4: A new year comes with new innovations and new cars. Xbox 360’s kicking it into gear with Forza Motorsport 4, giving fans a deeper look into cars that they dream of driving with the power of Kinect.
Resistance 3: The world is fighting to survive the invasion. Four years after Resistance 2 dishonorably discharged Sentinel Joseph Capelli jumps back into battle against the Chimeran to protect his family from the alien onslaught.
Portal 2: It may have been delayed but we all know a good game should be released in it’s entirety to make it worth your wild. Portal 2 takes players back to the Aperature Science Labs to face GLaDOS a few hundred years after the first Portal game. Let’s just hope the cake isn’t as old as the lab.
Mortal Kombat: Mortal Kombat is back with a huge twist. The story of MK I, II, and III will be retold and replayed differently. How you ask? Moments before being killed by Shao Kahn, Raiden sends a message back in time to himself warning him of a disastrous event. Doing so changes the path that was originally laid out in the MK series and some how introducing Kratos into the mix.
Mass Effect 3: The Earth is in trouble and Commander Shepard is the only man that may be able to take on the important mission of rallying civilizations around the galaxy to defend what’s left of Earth.
It’s not often that you get a new console or service for games. We are accustomed to one set of consoles and PC gaming. Every once and awhile you get a new idea which can either take its business model forward or drop dead in their tracks. Onlive, while not particularly new new, is only a six month old service and is bringing an added addition to their service. For those who don’t know what Onlive is I’ll do a quick run down. Onlive is a videogame streaming service that is launched by their application software on your computer, delivering the highest end PC games from their dedicated PC’s where they can be remotely played in your house on either a windows computer or mac. Our full preview can be found here.
Since the launch have tinkered with new features that pop up for the service. Everything from new games added, wifi support, iPad viewer and new means of functionality. Although the service is what they’re ultimately selling they hope to really turn heads with there addition of the Micro-Console. The Micro-Console or TV Adapter as they call it as well is made up of a small board with ports to take advantage of their high speed gaming service, HDTV’s in your household, and multiple control inputs. While the service has gone from a $15 plan, separate from game purchases, has now become free. Making the only game purchases the necessity. The Micro-Console however will set you back $99, so is the console and this service worth it? In many ways this might be a great alternative for what your lacking or already own. The LVLONE staff has been playing with the thing for about 12 days or so and this is what we think.
Hardware Side
The first thing we’ve noticed from the Micro-Console is that it has some really nice packaging design. It comes in a sleek matte black box that contains the console, control and all its components.
Here is an overview of everything it comes with. Micro-Console
Onlive controller
Power adapter
Micro USB to USB 2.0 cable
AAA batteries and rechargeable battery
Ethernet cable
Optical cable
HDMI cable
The console itself is the smallest home console I think I’ve ever encountered. Which is about the size of a Nintendo DS or the length of a Pez Dispenser. The back has an HDMI out, optical audio out, mini audio line-out (for stereo speakers or microphone), ethernet jack and extra port for component cable adapter which is sold separately. The front has the power button along with two USB 2.0 ports for controls, keyboards and mouses that are compatible. We tested it with some USB devices said to work including the Xbox 360 wired controller, logitech mouse and keyboard with all working as advertised.
You also get their newly designed controller which is different then the one seen at E3 of this year. To our staff the control looks like a hybrid between the original Xbox S control and the PS3 controller which can be seen above. This one however has dedicated video playback features for the services brag clips that can be recorded directly from the controller. This we found to be a nice touch to the overall design of the control and well thought out. The top port of the controller is a micro USB port to charge the rechargeable battery or sync the control itself.
We had a couple of known problems hardware side but these are more like knit picks and have alternatives incase these become issues for anyone. The Micro-Console when plugged into the power adapter would get considerably hot and this is even when the console is off. It seems the console still draws power as the ethernet port when plugged in is flashing, although we’ve found out the console itself is only said to consume 6 watts. We suggest unplugging the entire thing when not in use. Not all HDMI cables work directly out of the box with the console, you will need to first connect their HDMI cable most of the time until it updates then can plug in your standard if you wish to do so. The mini audio line-out is a 2.5 mm port which would allow you to connect small speakers or a headset that has a compatible jack. We’ve found that plugging a headset directly in would give you an uneven sound if your bandwidth fluctuates. If you connect some sort of mix amp with the console however it eliminates this problem.
The controller’s D-pad is possibly not suited for anything more then quick direction tapping for an item with the game or menu as it’s really rough on the hands. The controller also doesn’t have a line in for a microphone setup as the console will use blue tooth tech for headset chat. This will not favor those who already use a gaming headset with a mix amp as you will be able to listen to the game but will not be able to chat via the microphone. Although we haven’t checked out this exact set up (the service lacks chat at the moment) to confirm this but we wonder if they will let you use the Xbox 360’s control port on the bottom for such chat options.
Software Side
The hardware means nothing if the software doesn’t work as it should within it, well it does and I’m glad to say better then expected. The console and service is said to produce 1080p which there is no content for yet, however it does boast a 720p-1080p up-converter thats built into the console, we were using a Samsung 46″ LED LCD TV as the test unit. Upon boot up we were prompted to put in our username and password for the service and we were in! It takes about 5-10 seconds depending on your connection which we had about 15 megabit per second to work with. We were able to spectate other players, demo, play games and watch Brag Clips like I was on my iMac except it looked alot better. Colors were crisp, vibrant, games ran at 60fps and easily rivaled any other console we had with the same connection. Since this is dedicated hardware your bandwidth seems to focus better then if you were running it on a computer or laptop.
The service is said to be down to 40 milliseconds of latency between what you push on your control to what is actually happening on screen since it is being signaled remotely to there computers. We did find that some games run with no notice to input lag, while other saw about a half a second delay which isn’t much considering but maneuvering a vehicle in a game like “Just Cause 2” seemed to prove difficult at times when making split second decisions. Some games video quality to was not as perfect as it should have been. Not really sure why but playing a game like Unreal Tournament 3 didn’t hold up as well as Dirt 2 which looked perfect!
Final Thoughts
For those not sure where they think this kind of product or service is going, they’ve made it clear that this is unlike anything we have seen in the past. The service itself is adding new games all the time but can use some variety. Games like Street Fighter 4, Need for Speed, Battlefield and others would really test some of the services potential. The reality is, is that you are getting to play high end PC games at its best with no downloads or hiccups in framerate and you never upgrading your PC to do so. If you breakdown the hardware side you get the Micro-Console, Controller, cables (with the addition to some that are not even bundled in other consoles) and $50 game voucher on the service. This equals to the console and control ultimately being $25 a piece which is a steal! Games can cost you up to $40 cheaper then on consoles or PC so do the math. Also none of the gripes we mentioned should change anyones mind if they’re on the fence and most can be fixed with software or other means.
The service is rolling out new things all the time like its Play Pack feature which will allow you to pay a $9.99 monthly fee with a ton of already released games which they will keep adding to. Although not here yet, 3D support is said to be already built into the console for the future. We hope the console and the Onlive service does well as its proving to be something that could be a standard in todays gaming industry.
It’s hard for any game to try to reinvent the wheel, especially when its seen its fair share of games in that genre. Sometimes though when a game thinks its bringing something new, it is really bringing something old. Nail’d is an arcade ATV/MX racer with an emphasis on big jumps and speed. The game is all about throwing a bunch of stuff at you during the course and how fast you can get to the finish line. Doesn’t seem like a hard thing to master? However what you get is a racer with great track ideas but spotty collision detection and some overall uninspiring execution.
The Tournament mode is where you’ll spend most of your time as it’ll unlock new tracks, parts to put on your vehicles and other goodies. All the parts will give your vehicle different variations of speed, handling and boost for you to make your own customizations. Most races are track lap courses but throw in occasional segmented races and mods. Nothing to out of the ordinary here as there is no story, which is not necessary and the difficulty starts to get steep after a good amount of tourney’s completed. The game could use a bigger variety of race variants to play with as it can get old pretty fast.
The games tracks are where it shines the most. Cool effects like mud and water covering the screen when you go over them is a nice touch, although it sometimes makes it hard to see something in front of you when it happens. Most of the time you will be dodging crazy obstacles or jumping over objects while your racing. Everything from trains, to hot air balloons or jumping from one side of a bridge to another is some of the stuff you will experience. Multiple paths are almost in every corner which give you split second decisions on where to go next, this is something that should be taken note for other racers.
Other modes are Off-Road which will allow you to do Time Attack, Quick Event and Custom Tournaments which is all pretty self explanatory. The game has multiplayer system link (not sure why there is no split screen) and even has online multiplayer. The online multiplayer is 12 players but got difficult to get full games in. The cool thing is that it will allow you to get into a race that has already started and allow you to spectate which most racers don’t do nowadays. One of our biggest gripes with the online was that if you crashed in the game it would take twice as long then the single player to come back in, which can pretty much kill your chances of winning a race. They should allow you to come back instantaneously.
With all of this there are some serious issues with the game that should be taken note of. Sometimes the game seems to fast for its own good. While you may be thinking that a straight path is the right direction, your actually going out of bounce. In some courses you can be in the middle of the track and all of a sudden crash because it detects that your out of bounce. While the music is form fitting for the game, it seems really dated, doesn’t offer any variety since its only rock and I can recall most tracks being in the Tony Hawk series or other racers. Not to mention that it gets insanely repetitive as fast as one play through for about an hour or two. The game also lacks any real desire to experiment while your in a race. Sure it has a dozen different ways to go about a race but since your only real premise is to adjust yourself in air before you land or try to get in fire rings for a boost, it kind of feels empty. Although this is trying to convey speed which it does somewhat well it would have been nice to see some sort of trick system while doing a big jump.
Nail’d does a couple of things well like have nice big environments with an great amount of routes, an extreme sense of speed, adds ATV’s, MX, replays, leaderboards and spectator. The game just feels unpolished most of the time, with weird out of bounce areas and dated gameplay that could be helped by inclusion of more modes or things to do during the race. There is fun here especially with other friends, I had a good time racing on newer areas and seeing how fast I can make it around a course but some fixes to the overall framework of the game would be great for the sequel.
We all need a little Pit Girl in our lives, and who better to do it than Steam? Uber Entertainment has decided to share the bacon with players who use Steam. Come Monday, January 17, 2011 gamers will be able to download Monday Night Combat for the low price of $14.99, but if you decide to pre-order they’ll knock off ten percent and give you access to the Beta when it goes live. Fans of Team Fortress 2 may, or possibly will fall in love with this rendition of team versus team combat, considering that Monday Night Combat gets sponsored by companies like Spunky Cola.
Halo fans rejoice! There is a new set of maps for your favorite and latest entry into the franchise, Halo: Reach. The first DLC release for the game will give you three new maps to play with that”ll have gamers fighting in a space station, forerunner battle structures and a forerunner crash site. The Noble Map Pack was released on November 30th so plenty are already playing it or decided to skip it. We got a chance to dive right into what they’ve added and if your on the fence, well then you shouldn’t be but here’s some things you may want to know.
Tempest has Forerunner structures on both sides of this symmetrical stage that just happen to give you the perfect battle ground to fight on. A beach is on one side while water coming from a river or waterfall is on another. Both Forerunner bases bring their own use on the battlefield, although we mostly found them as a passing through structure then an actual fighting ground. This is a relatively big stage as well which supports 8-16 players that can play modes like Team Slayer, Team Objective and Big Team Battle. Our favorite games quickly became team slayer DMR’s and team snipers as everything seems strategically placed well. From the small rocks to the man cannons, there are tons to do here and all in different ways then the last. Warthogs are also in the stage and provide just enough balance to still make it a fair fight between opposing forces. Bungie has also set this stage up for a variety of Forge layouts. Specific tools can be used and they expect to see some interesting new stage ideas for this one.
Anchor 9 is a orbital dockyard for UNSC vessels and my personal favorite. If you think about the last sentence I just said then yes YOU FIGHT IN SPACE! Well its a space station but has a section where players can duke it out in Zero G (not exactly Zero but it’s pretty low). Careful however as going to long/far a jump can suck you out in the fast vacuum of space itself. The gravity inside is also protected by a shield door which can get you out of tight jams since bullets repel off of them or players can spam shotgun kill from close range if not careful. A bunch of cargo blocks and containers fill the inside of the docks as there are two pretty equal sides for this stage. Corners get tight and hallways get narrow. You always seem to need to watch your back on this one, one second your alone, the next your being assassinated. Free for All, Team Slayer and Team Objective can be played on this one, although we found game types like Stock Pile to be completely chaotic here.
The last stage is Breakpoint and it looks to be the heart of a Forerunner crash site with very sensitive material. You can tell that the battleground is set up as if a Covenant assault is taking place to retrieve it and UNSC will do everything it can to protect it. Most of the stage is icy and has three different approaches to tavern to the other side. A low bridge area is the most dangerous root unless your making your way with a vehicle, middle cave tunnels that fit two people at once on each or the big tunnel highest on the opposite side of the bridge. Every vehicle is in this stage and can cause quite a ruckus. All routes can be used in different ways as the stage is very large, so much so that it was particularly made for Invasion game type. In Invasion Elites will have to invade one of the two sides of the first base to open the tunnels and bridge to the other side. From there one needs to grab the bomb (which is laminated in purple for this stage) and arm it on the lower base on the other side, once detonated will need to grab the core from which it was being protected back to the Elite ship waiting across the bridge from once you came. Spartans must defend all structures from being attacked or prevent the core from reaching the enemy ship while this is going on. Pretty much all other game modes can be played here. We did find that once players get in banshees that fights can get pretty one sided. Since there are plenty of tall structure and mountains, it is easy for banshees to get out of the way of anti aircraft weapons, although there should be more of them or at least more turrets.
The best thing about these stages is that they are better looking then the original multiplayer stages in the game and have extreme measures of detail. Lights, snow effects and reflective services look great. Anchor 9 in particular has a space battle happening right outside near the planet which can be seen. A crash sound effect can be heard before actually entering the stage of Breakpoint and we think its to signify the crash site itself. Our staff appreciated the stages right away as we noticed that each one is a completely new experience. None of them are in the campaign or are extensions of other stages.
I will admit that at first I was a stickler since I had only liked one stage right away and know how much DLC should be worth your hard earned money. However the more I played with them, the more I really dug the work that went into them. We’ve found ourselves doing different strategies for each stage and making friends along the way. For 800 MS points ($10) this is definitely worth checking out as each stage can be played tons and tons of times.
Over the weekend on the Spike Video Game Awards, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was announced. Not even a full week after do we get to catch a glimpse of game play on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC. Naughty Dog’s Co-Presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Belestra were kind enough to bring a demo version over to NBC for Fallon to play a year before it’s release on November 1, 2011.
The latest Mortal Kombat for the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be available in April. Scorpion, Sub-Zero and the gang will be there and the game will also offer DLC. Depending on the retailer you go to, you’ll get exclusive pre-order content. Mortal Kombat will have a collectors edition available as well dubbed Kollector’s Edition. The Kollector’s Edition will include the game, Scorpion, Sub-Zero figurines, art book, Klassic Mortal Combat costumes and Avatar costumes. There will also be a Tourament Edition making its rounds however it will be limited since only 20,000 will be in North America. This version will include an Arcade Stick and DLC.
Plus as extra an bonus, our good friend Kratos will be joining the fun too, exclusive for the PS3 which was announced at the 2010 VGA’s over the weekend. Nothing has been announced for the Xbox 360 version as of now but will it even get an exclusive character?.
The exclusive Pre-order DLC for each retailer are as follows,
GameStop: Klassic Scorpion Playable Character Skin and the original Scorpion Fatality.Â
Best Buy: Klassic Sub-Zero Playable Character Skin and the original Sub-Zero Fatality.Â
Amazon: Klassic Reptile Playable Character Skin and the original Reptile Fatality.
If you held out or missed out that Black Friday gaming deals well then you might want to bite the bullet on this one. Amazon is having deals for the PS3 and Wii consoles. When customers purchase a 160gb PS3 they will get $75 store credit or $50 for the Wii. Only one per house hold is allowed and we’re pretty sure the gaming credit will be applied a day or two after purchase There is no date to when these sale will end, so get them while its hot cause this is one great deal.
