Gaming Addict

Went slightly old school this week, to play a game I’ve always wanted to experience, but had just not gotten around to playing.  And holy crap am I ever glad for download services like Direct2Drive and Steam, because after having only been playing Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines for a day, I am completely addicted.  I was always a fan of the RPG before, and remember playing with the ‘goth’ kids at my high school on more than one occasion.  So knowing a ton about the backstory and setup of the Vampire environment, I always wanted to play Bloodlines but was nervous about how the universe would translate into a videogame.  Though now I’m happy I took the risk, because Bloodlines is fantastic. 

Sure it’s not without the occasional bug here and there, but Bloodlines offers an unparalleled and true to Vampire: The Masquerade lore videogame experience, in which you get to take your fledgling vampire into the World Of Darkness.  The combat of course leaves something to be desired, but the plot elements and questing, as well as building your character all ring remarkably true to the source material, and I have found myself completely in love with this game.

Now I think I’m going to go play some more. . .

Warner Bros is taking the reins of the Lord of the Rings movie/game tie-ins, and are going to start us off by basically remaking the games that have come before.  First up is Lord Of The Rings: Aragorn’s Quest, which is just a rehash of the same battles and events you’ve already played through from the films, only this time you’re only given the choice of playing as Aragorn.  The game is going to be released for DS, PSP, PS2, and Nintendo Wii, which also means we won’t get a cool glossy and beautiful ‘next-gen’ LOTR world to play through, meaning this really is going to be nothing but rehash of what you’ve already done before.

Lame, is all I have to say, completely and utterly lame.

I don’t really find myself interested in any ‘unique’ take on Aragorn’s quests, at least not with last-gen technology, or motion control gimmicks.  I want new LOTR experiences, with battles that push the scale and ability of the Xbox 360 and PS3, with graphics that make you feel a part of Middle-Earth.  I don’t want to play yet another LOTR PS2 game, or a gimmicky DS game…although some cool epic battles on the go would be awesome for PSP considering the 3D rendering ability of the handheld.

But still…new experiences, not rehashed cash-ins…please Warner, take that to heart.  

The Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise has a new game in development that actually sounds pretty decent.  Called Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned, and planned as a single player RPG experience akin to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, only set in the PotC universe.  Considering this had been done in the past with a Pirates of the Caribbean game on original Xbox that pretty much nobody remembers, I’ve already seen about how this concept will be carried out, and I’m pretty excited for a new version.

The first PotC action RPG was awesome and featured the exploration ability of an Elder Scrolls game, as well as the massive areas in which you can traverse, but with the added ability to have your own ship.  That’s where Pirates of the Caribbean really shined, because the ship combat was superb and the tactics were done realistically and awesomely.  Not to mention the ridiculously cool feature to either control your ship from a third person perspective, or you could go first person and take up a place on the deck in the heat of battle.  

Freaking awesome…despite it’s many, many prevalent flaws.

But given this past and unsuccessful release, I’m thinking Disney Interactive is much better prepared to do the epic action RPG with the PotC license correctly this time.  

Armada of the Damned is set a few years before the events of the films, so no doubt you’ll run into a few famous characters and locations from the series.  I’d imagine you’ll also be given a chance to experience those things in completely new and different ways.  

IGN.com had an awesome announcement, and the Wii is about to get a whole lot cooler come the first quarter of 2010, and that’s because the just announced Gladiator A.D. will be releasing at that time, and this is going to be the coolest Wii game ever made.  Gladiator A.D. represents exactly what I’ve been waiting for from the Wii, a badass weapon combat game that utilizes Wii MotionPlus technology to offer you a realistically controlled brutal fighting experience.  So basically, unless developer High Voltage Software really screws up this concept royally, Gladiator A.D. is already my new favorite Wii game.

The screenshots remind me of Shadow of Rome so far, and that’s not a bad thing at all, considering how badass Shadow of Rome was, coolest gladiatorial game to date.  Brutal, visceral, limb chopping crazy combat, and epic gladiatorial battle royals featuring some of the fiercest moments I’ve ever experienced in videogame combat.  I hope Gladiator A.D. continues in that vein, although if I can have a Wii bashing moment here for two seconds….I’m a little disappointed that Shadow of Rome apparently has better graphics than Gladiator A.D. is going to feature.  I’m a little disappointed as to the visual quality up to this point, but that’s nothing new considering the Wii’s barely better than PS2 graphical ability.

But I won’t let that deter me from some crazy motion control gladiatorial combat, because I’m all up for this more than I’ve ever been down to play Wii before!

I’m definitely finding myself even more interested than I was before in playing FUEL when the game releases June 5th.  Mostly because they’ve just been awarded a world record from Guinness World Records for the largest game environment ever before found in a console game.  In fact there is so much racing terrain available in FUEL that apparently the game covers a distance that’s equal to the size of Trinidad & Tobago.  Which means this game is going to be freaking huge. 

But then my only worries with such a large game area are going to be in the quality of the game’s graphics and what sort of a slowdown you could suffer from having such a large area of storms and ridiculously diverse terrain.  Given the limitations on the size a game can be for Xbox 360 and PS3, I’m slightly concerned about which corners had to be cut for FUEL to remain such a massive game.  Is there going to be a ton of filters to make the graphics appear better than they actually are, because those are easy to see through and tend to be a disturbance when you’re playing.  

I guess I can’t judge properly until either a demo is released, or until June 5th when I can play the real thing.  I’m just hoping FUEL lives up to the hype, of which there is a ton.  

Once again my disappointment with Lucasarts knows no bounds.  There is in fact a new Star Wars Battlefront game on the horizon, but not in the way that we were all hoping.  If there is in fact to be a ‘next-gen’ Battlefront, we’re certainly going to have to wait for some time, as the only release coming up will be for PSP and DS.  Which to me, once more, means Lucasarts is cutting corners, likely because of the hits they’ve taken in the economic recession.  And I understand having to cut corners when the economy sucks, but it still pisses me off.  

I have two PSP Battlefront games, and they’re both damn near identical, just as this new Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is destined to become.  I don’t want more crappy visuals combined with crappy controls Battlefront games.  I want the real thing, with awesome visuals that push 360 and PS3 to their limits, vehicles that rival the fun found in Halo 3’s vehicular carnage, and epic stages lifted straight from all six Star Wars films.  And something new, not the Hoth battle again, we’ve all done that to death, it’s time to let the lame Hoth stage die once and for all.

Please do a Battlefront game right!  We got an awesome Battlefront esque Lord Of The Rings game with LOTR: Conquest, and it was fantastic, from graphics down to battle scale, down to just how cool the combat itself was.  Step up Star Wars, give us a movie franchise battle game that we’ve all always wanted!

Details are being announced for what we can expect when the Tony Hawk franchise makes a return to gaming, and with the innovations planned, Hawk just may be able to swipe the skater game reins back from EA’s Skate.  We all know by now that Skate is highly regarded as the best skating game on the market, because of it’s realism.  Well the Tony Hawk series is going to battle this by making their game even more realistic, with the inclusion of a wireless skateboard peripheral, which will require you to use the actual real life motions necessary to pull off tricks.

Although I’m not entirely sure how well this will come off, considering how exactly the board will need to be used, and how this will affect the game’s difficulty, I’m definitely intrigued.  Although I have no real life skating skills of my own, so no doubt this will probably have a steep learning curve, I’m down to pick this one up when it finally releases.  

Not to mention the Tony Hawk franchise always was my favorite in the skating medium, although Skate had the technically better gameplay and physics, the Tony Hawk games were fun for the ridiculous tricks and combos you could perform.  The unrealistic jumps and physics, and the ability to throw yourself around and break as many bones as possible.  It’s just cool.

I hope they keep those series standards intact as Tony Hawk moves into the more realistic skateboard control medium. 

I can’t wait to play the upcoming Spore expansion pack, Spore: Galactic Adventures, and not even because I’m a fan of Spore itself, but because of who will be involved with Galactic Adventures.  When Spore’s first expansion ships there will also be a bit of free DLC conceptualized and created by the genius minds behind the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken.  Considering how random and crazy that show is, not to mention ridiculously funny, I can’t wait to see what Seth Green and Matt Senreich have in store for the videogame universe.

Of course this will not be like playing a Robot Chicken episode within the Spore universe, the DLC pack will just contain a slew of levels/mini-games developed by Green and Senreich themselves.  But I’m still very interested to see what they come up with, considering the crazy ADD world the duo have created with Robot Chicken. 

A ton of exploding poo, pissed off librarians, and savagely angry Yeti’s are all expected in full, according to Videogamer.com.  Count me completely in, not to mention the more fleshed out space experience that Spore: Galactic Adventures is promising to bring to the table.  A good thing considering the best feature about Spore was the space travel, although at least to me, the galactic exploration phase never really felt fully fleshed out.

I’m hoping an expansion dedicated to completing the experience will be everything I’m wishing for, with some fantastic wacky levels thrown in by the Robot Chicken dudes.  Completely worth expansion pack price if that’s the case. 

 Hideo Kojima has a new teaser of sorts, in the form of a website that provides an eighty hour countdown, with a rainy forest backdrop, and either a blocky ‘S’ or the number ‘5” that occasionally flashed behind the countdown clock.  Which means this is a teaser for the expected upcoming announcement from Kojima and co on something fantastic? Who can tell, especially knowing his tendencies towards revelations.

Metal Gear Solid 5?  Or if it’s an S is it a new franchise that’s going to be spawned from the Metal Gear games, or will it be a completely separate entity in no way related to the Metal Gear Solid franchise?

Maybe their dropping the Solid for the next sequel and going back to Metal Gear?  Or perhaps the original Metal Gear games are going to be re-released for mobile devices and on Playstation Network and Xbox Live and that sort of thing?  Or the original Metal Gear games have been remade?  Who can tell? 

Sure is hard to wait 80 hours to find out though.

Reading about Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires isn’t helping my extreme anticipation much either.  Mostly because Koei is promising a completely different way to play a DW Empires game by slightly tweaking the experience, allowing you to take on the role of either a ruler or an officer in a ruler’s army.  But like every DW game before it, just sounds like a rehash of the stuff we’ve all already been playing for ages now.  

Red Dead Revolver is probably the best wild west themed game ever made, based solely on the action involved and just how badass you felt playing as Red Harlow.  The shootouts were fantastic, and like nothing you’d ever seen in a wild west experience before, and although Gun came along and became the more complete wild west gaming experience, nothing outdid the gunplay of Red Dead Revolver.  Which is exactly why I’m so damn excited about the upcoming Red Dead Redemption.

Especially given the new screens and trailer that’s been released.  Not only is Red Dead Redemption likely to recapture the badass aspects of taking on the role of Red Harlow, but Redemption is going to look remarkable.  Redefining how awesome an old school gunfight can look, as well as play.  Although this time around I just hope that Rockstar fleshes out the gameplay a bit more.  Like involving more than just action, so that you have more of a complete experience, like Gun.  

I want Rockstar to do that Grand Theft Auto: Wild West type game, to go far beyond the concepts that Gun brought about, and create a true bustling western world for you to explore and become a part of.

I really, really cannot wait to play this, and well done Rockstar because so far Red Dead Redemption looks fantastic.