Videos
This week over at Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? "Dad" is playing Heavy Rain and is having about the same level and type of fun that I'm having with the title. Now before you go judging me, don't pretend that you didn't think about doing some of these things too.
I know what the lords of the GayGamer castle talked about it on the podcast and Tiny even gave it a glowing review, but not everyone's experience with Heavy Rain is the same. While far from terrible, I think the game has more similarities with Space Ace than Silent Hill 2, Bioshock, Half-life and other games known for their masterful plots and story telling, but hey... that's just me. I better not say anything more or else I'll end up in the castle's dungeon again. Enjoy the video, folks!
I don't know what's worse — that it took this long for the Lips series to branch out into a more specific genre for an add-on disc, or that it totally snuck up on me! Lips: I Love The '80s is apparently due out in the UK on April 2. I was really hoping for a US release, because I would have been all over that like I don't even know what! Unfortunately, I contacted Microsoft, and this is a UK release only. Sigh. Hopefully some of these songs will make it to our shores as DLC because I absolutely love '80s music, and they're are the songs I've always sang the most in Lips. And with tunes like "The Look of Love" by ABC, "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama, "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo and "Kids In America" by Kim Wilde, I'd be in heaven! I'll put the full 40-track list after the jump, if you're a UK reader and curious as to what you're getting. If you're a US Lips fan, I don't recommend making that jump, because it'll just upset you. Seriously, I can't even express my disappointment in words here. It's awful...
A boy and a giant lumbering creature teaming up to solve puzzles and explore overgrown ruins? No, this isn't the latest trailer for The Last Guardian, this is Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom a game that was first announced well over a year ago but has likely fallen off of most gamers' radar. As the game nears its new Fall 2010 release date, Namco Bandai has kindly released a new trailer to help drum up excitement for this stunning game.
And while comparisons to Team ICO's The Last Guardian are inevitable, two things seem to set Majin apart so that the two games can coexist peacefully. You may have noticed the amount of action in the trailer is a bit above the level seen in a Team ICO game, and that's because combat will play a big role in Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom. Keep in mind, this is developed by Game Republic, the team behind Genji and Folklore, so a more action-oriented approach is to be expected. The other big difference though, and something that should excite a fair number of you, is that Majin will see release on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360. When exactly that release will be is still up in the air, but Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is definitely among my most anticipated games of the year, so be sure that as soon as something more concrete than Fall 2010 is announced you'll hear about it here.
So out of the many, many times gay gamers have been bashed or insulted or ignored wholesale by the gaming community and developers, the
incident that stands out most sharply to this queer hobbyist is a video made to promote one of the biggest-selling games of all time last year--yes, the "Fight Against Grenade Spam" PSA video for
Modern Warfare 2. Even if it had come from a much smaller or less public group, the final message of that promotion would have had as much tact as a Phelps on Sunday, and as much ignomity. Coming from a major publisher, it saw enough righteous backlash by the media and gamers that Infinity Ward
finally took the video down.
That was a happy day, and so is this one: DICE, the developers of another rather large FPS experience known as Battlefield: Bad Company 2, have put together their own PSA about the effects of random grenades, with the infamous Infinity Ward video directly in their sites of ideas to lampoon.
Bad Company has always had an irreverent Down Periscope feel to its dialog, and that comes through in the PSA above. After baseball pitcher CC Sabathia berates one of the game's characters for throwing random grenades, the PSA gets hijacked: "Hi, I'm private Terrence Sweetwater of 222nd Army Battalion, and I'm here to talk to you about random baseball pitchers who talk to you about random grenades!"
Sweetwater continues to go on a tear, but the best part about this video isn't just the references to "computer games of this particular genre," or the highlighting of BC2's one-upping features such as destructable terrain and vehicle combat.
No, the best part about the video at the end, which triumphantly adds a single word to turn the homophobic slur from the Modern Warfare video into F.R.A.G.S., which--surprise!--is actually related to grenades and not to creating a hostile online environment for queer gamers.
The unconcerned cast of Bad Company do take some potshots at snowmobiles and heartbeat sensors in the game, but actually parodying the machinima advertisements from their 'rival' game takes some guts. Even for those who might not see the value of blowing things up in online shooters, the message of friendliness DICE puts out is definitely appreciated.
There's something to be said for finding hidden gems amongst the sea of games and products present on the Expo floor at GDC, and yet it seems that I had such luck stumbling upon publisher Outspark. Turns out I wasn't the only one with such luck in finding the overlooked because Outspark themselves had discovered a gem of their own in the Korean MMO Travia, which they re-purposed and re-imagined as Erebus: Travia Reborn, currently in closed beta.
The game itself is an Action-RPG MMO in a similar vein as Diablo and the like, but with better graphics and a more PvP centric gameplay. While the core mechanics come from the original Travia game, Outspark has taken time to completely update and enrich the backstory to the game while also making some of the guild and PvP features more accessible for western audiences. The game itself features four character classes each with multiple sub-classes which are furthered by having their own master classes, 18 in all. You can play as a Warrior class, honing your skills to become a Blade Master or Paladin. The Archer class can focus their weapon skills to become Huntresses, or go a more mystical route to being Summoners. Of course there is staple Mage class that has three subclasses based on Fire, Ice, and Lightning. Finally, there is the Cleric Class that can look to life and become a Bishop or to shadows to become Necromancers.
While the game has your standard quests to help players progress through the levels, much of the action in the game revolves around your guild and PvP action. Throughout the land are different player controlled cities, and periodically these cities will have their control fought over. Guilds can bid for a chance to attack the different cities and the guild with the highest bid gets to try and storm the city walls and wrestle the city from the guild already in possession of the city. Gaining control of the towns allows certain perks to the guild, one of which is collecting a portion of all trade done with the vendors in the town. The pinnacle of the PvP system are massive 50v50 guild battles that take place in a battlegrounds system on the servers, and I was told that they are working on being able to take the battle across servers in the future.
From what I saw of the game, the action seems fast paced and the different areas were vibrant in color and scenery. The game is currently in closed beta, with it hopefully launching sometime this spring. Once the game launches, it will follow the free-to-play with micro-transactions model. While the beta may currently be closed, the fine folks over out Outspark gave me a number of beta keys that I'm giving away on the forums, so hit up the PC forums if you want one. Be sure to check out the newly launched website for the game too, where they are releasing new info on the game weekly.
Erebus: Travia Reborn
Above we have the newest character revealed for the Dragon Age: Origins expansion, Awakening. This could be interesting:
Not all the denizens of the Fade identify with darker emotions like rage and pride. Some embody the nobler qualities found in humanity: faith, hope, compassion, and justice. Justice is not a name, it is an identity. A victim of magic gone awry, Justice has been torn from the Fade against his will and trapped in the body of a dead Grey Warden. Lost and disoriented, he seeks a guide to help make sense of this alien world and demonstrate what it means to be human.
Justice doesn't seem like he'll be the cuddliest member of the crew (although a romance option with a living corpse would be ... unique), but his angst could provide some interesting conflicts, especially if you play a character not exactly following the straight and narrow.
It looks like there's one more new companion to be officially revealed, which will likely coincide with the last page of the Penny Arcade comic being written for the game. Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening is out this Tuesday for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Dragon Age: Origins - Justice [Bioware]
A couple of weeks ago, NaviFairy
brought the news to one and all that we'd be seeing a new type of vehicle in
Mass Effect 2, along with some details about its functionality and release. Now it's time to get a third-hand glimpse at exactly what this shiny new hovertoy can do, as the above trailer puts the Hammerhead's abilities and physics in order.
It took a few moments to recall exactly what this craft's floaty destruction was reminding me of, and that's the hovering vehicles in both Halo and Unreal Tournament 2004. It's interesting that one of our favorite RPGs would seem to take minigame elements from one of society's most clichéd FPS games, but the fact is that zooming about in vehicles like these and raining laser death on one's foes is just extremely satisfying, like hangliding and nailing target practice at the same time.
The Hammerhead will apppear in a five-mission DLC pack called "Firewalker," sometime later this month. As part of BioWare and EA's continuing wish to provide the most content for their most loyal fans, this download will be free to anyone with Cerberus Network access, which comes with each new copy of the game or as part of a separate download for $15.
Are you still giddy from Game-Boy's Puzzle Quest 2 hands-on? Well fans of the unique pairing of puzzle and RPG mechanics will be happy to hear that Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD will be making its way to Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network later this year.
Not content to simply port one of the best handheld games from last year, Capybara Games is updating the visuals with beautifully drawn HD characters and environments, new four player co-op and versus online multiplayer modes, re-balancing of some of the DS version's overpowered artifacts, and the ability to revisit previously completed chapters in the single player campaign. I'm not always a fan of developers replacing perfectly good pixel art when bringing their games to HD, but after seeing Capybara's upgrade in motion it's hard to raise an objection.
With no price or date set yet for Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD, I can only hope that there's a decent gap between it and Puzzle Quest 2. I don't think I could handle two addictive timesink puzzle RPGs at the same time.
Well, one thing that makes all the panels and meetings of GDC a little more bearable are the many press parties that different companies throw each night to showcase some of their games and release new info to the press. The Capcom party last night was a fine example: swanky location near Union Square, Final Fight and Super Street Fighter IV stations a plenty, and a bevy of libations abounded to help soothe our already aching bodies; however, between rounds of beating Game-Boy with metal pipe "on accident" in Final Fight, there were some big announcements to be made at the event, all of them Street Fighter related.
One of the announcements was concerning Street Fighter IV launching for the iPhone with them pushing the game live onto the appStore while at the event. Game-Boy will be delighting you with some of his impressions from the button-less controls for the game later today. The bigger news was the fact that they were announcing the last character for Super Street FIghter IV, Hakan. As you can see in the trailer above, Hakan loves himself some oil wrestling, which leads to some very comedic moves of his own. In fact, the last minute of the trailer involves him shooting just about every character in the game from his chest and between his greased up thighs in a torpedo motion. The whole scene is semi-erotic, but mostly hilarious. Hakan is apparently fighting for his wife and daughters, but I'm sure he doesn't mind giving Zangief the full squeeze from what I can see. Look for Super Street FIghter IV releasing on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on April 27th.
Before we get to this week's reviews, I first want to introduce you to an upcoming indie JRPG that looks simply fantastic. The game is Breath of Death VII, a parody and homage to classic RPGs, with the above trailer for the game magically appearing in my inbox over the weekend. If you like classic RPGs like Dragon Warrior/Quest then this is one Xbox 360 game that should definitely be on your radar. Can you count the classic game references?
As for games released in the here and now, there were quite a few great ones recently. Two new tower defense games that actually manage to do something fresh with the genre, Two great puzzle games that can warm your heart or disgust you, a puzzle platformer in the style of N+, and a hack 'n slash RPG of sorts. Not a bad mix. So click on to see what hidden gems the Xbox Live indie games have to offer.
Nothing like some John Lee Hooker playing in the background to get you worked up for a game that has been dangled in front of us for well over two years now. With all those "boom boom"s and some "bang bang"s playing, it gets you properly revved up to play the sequel to the popular mobster franchise, Mafia II. After all this time of teasing us with the sequel, it looks like 2K Games will finally be releasing the game in the second half of this year.
The trailer above seems to be setting up some of the plotline and characters for the story that will be in the game. I'm just happy to see the 40s and 50s era guns, cars, and clothing throughout the trailer. Nothing like car chases in old vehicles with tommy guns blazing in the background to set the scene. Mafia II will be your standard third-person sandbox-based shooter in which you play a member of the mob in a post-WWII fictional city called Empire Bay. The game will have a robust main storyline along with option quests and side missions and plenty of other things to do throughout the city.
The game should be releasing on the Xbox 360, Playstion 3, and on the PC sometime this Fall. I'm sure we'll see more of it at E3 like we did last year, but until then enjoy the trailer.
A good deal on a large SD card means I can start buying up WiiWare games once again, and I know Bit.Trip Runner will pretty high on my list. Developer Gaijin Games describes it as a "rhythm platformer," and the visuals pretty much match that description perfectly. You control Commander Video as he runs, jumps, and slides to avoid obstacles and collect coins and other assorted goodies, all while a chiptune soundtrack blares in the background and a rainbow shoots out of your back. It's like they squished my greatest dreams and worst nightmares into one game.
Runner is the fourth in the acclaimed Bit.Trip series, with the first one, Bit.Trip Beat released a year ago this month. Honestly, while Bit.Trip Runner looks really fun, it also kind of looks like those fake games they put in commercials and movies that are supposed to scream, "SEE THIS IS A VIDEOGAME!" but never look real enough to convince you that anyone is actually supposed to play it. Except now you can! Sometimes real life catches up to fake life in a good way. There's no date for Runner just yet, although I'm crossing my fingers we won't be waiting too much longer.
And girls who like girls who like rumble packs!
Gay Gamer of the Week
Name: Ben B.
Forum Name: Cicero
Age: 22
Location: Jacksonville, Fla
Gay, Straight or Bi: Gay!
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