Gamesmanship

This years E3 conference left everyone feeling excited for the new year. This fall is definitely shaping up to be something to talk about with lots of new games coming out that everyone cannot wait to get their hands on. Here is a list of the good Xbox360 and PC games coming out from now until October 7th.

Soul Caliber 4: (July 29 2008) ~ 4 out of 5 ~ This game is coming out with several new features this year that look to be really cool. I think that the feature that is in everyone’s mind right now is the new Jedi characters that are going the cast. It will be amazing to see how the creators fit them into the game.

Madden NFL 2009: (August 12 2008) ~ 4 out of 5 ~ The latest installment in the Madden series is sure to be a good game with great controls and tackles.  Not much else to say here. Well see how things go from here out.

Fable Pub Games: (August 2008) ~ 4 out of 5 ~ This early release for the Xbox Live Arcade is sure to stir up a bit of excitement for the series. By playing this game on Xbox Live Arcade you can get money that you can use in your game of Fable II. I hope the games are good.

Too Human: (August 14 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ Too Human is set far in the future in a society where select individuals are upgraded into cyborg-like creatures who are concidered gods. This game is based off of morse mythology. It looks to be an early hit title this fall.

Sims 2 Apartment Life: (August 26 2008) ~ 4 out of 5 ~ Finaly there is going to be a expansion pack for The Sims where you can keep all of your sims in one place at one time without having to pay for a mansion. This is probably not going to be a highlight title this season but if you are a hardcore Sims fan you need this game when it is released.

Tales of Vesperia: (August 26 2008) ~ 3 out of 5 ~ This new installment in the Tales series has  great graphics, great story line, and great real-time battles. The one and only thing that annoys me about the game is that the main character seems a little gay. That might change in the actual game but we will just have to wait and see.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames: (August 31 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ This is seriously a bad ass game! The game basicly starts out with some guy pissing you off and the rest of the game is spent getting back at him and blowing up anything in your way. The game looks amazing and is definately going to be a gaming highlight this fall.

Infinite Undiscovery: (September 2 2008) ~ 4 out of 5 ~ This game is really hard to summarize in a few short scentences because there is so much going on in this game. It is a game with combat like the tales series but with better graphics. The game is basicly about a planet that has brought doom down on itself by chaining up the moon. Kind of a wierd game.

Spore: (September 7 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ This amazing game is one of the most anticipated games to be released this year. Spore is about advancing a species of creatures up from being cells in a petry dish to galactic conquerors. Everything is editable in the game from the planets and ecosystem to the species and the buildings. I recomend this game to anyone with an imagination.

Legendary: (September 9 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ The myths have come alive in this FPS and they are terrorizing the modern world. You were the one that opened Pandora’s Box and let them all free so now it is your job to put them back in the box. Sounds like fun!

Rock Band 2: (September 14 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ Rock Band is back with it’s biggest selection of songs ever. 84 songs come with the game and as a special bonus you are allowed to download all of the songs from the first one so you don’t have to keep switching disks. I’m going to enjoy this one.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: (September 16 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ If you haven’t heard of this one you need to get out more. Basicly this is a game based inbetween the original three and the new three Star Wars movies. Darth Vader finds you and trains you as his secret apprentice. All of your force powers  are amazing in this game and it is sure to be amazing.

Warhammer Online: (September 23 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ This game can only really be described as massive! There are supposed to be intence realm vs realm battles that you will be able to capture cities that will grow with time if you continue to defend them. This game looks like a good game that might be able to beat World of Warcraft but we will just have to wait and see.

Farcry 2: (October 1 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ Big expancive free roaming games seem to be in right now. Farcry is one of these games in which you are a guy in Africa that gets to blow lots of stuff up in spectacular ways. I’m sure the story is better than that but that is really all I know about this game.

Fable 2: EDITORS CHOICE (October 2008) ~ 6 out of 5 ~ This game is above and beyond anything I ever expected for a game to do. This game is completely based around money. Anything and everything you do in this game effects the world so be careful. It also effects how your character looks. You look like what you play. I’m also looking forward to the cooperative playing that this game offers. Fun Fact: You can buy every house or property that you see in the game. This game deffinately deserves evey game award out there and I cannot wait to get it.

Fallout 3: (October 7 2008) ~ 5 out of 5 ~ This game is based in a Post-Nuclear world in which you a decendent of a survivor is traversing trying to find out why your father has left the nice safe vault you grew up in. This game is amazing and is well worth your money.

I did finally get guild wars but i am sad to say that the game just did not deliver. It had good graphics but the gloomy storyline just made you feel bad. Also all of the areas that you are in are just boring to play. It is like being in a bad black and white movie.

It felt like there was absolutely no reason to keep going with the game mainly because of the novels that you had to read and the enclosed spaces of the world that you were allowed to explore. If more of this game had voice acting I would have a greater desire to play it. The PvP battles were pretty much pointless with almost no fun aspects of multiplayer. Maybe it would have worked out better if there had been some kind of conflict metagame that had guilds fighting over territory.

If you are looking for a game that is going to equal the amazing story line and playability of Oblivion then this is not the game for you. I would have to say that World of Warcraft is definitely the best MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) for PC users at this time.

With all of the new games coming out gamers can’t help but record what they want to get this year. Here is my list of all of the games I hope to get and review.

1. Top Spin 3: This game is definitely at the top of a lot of gamers wish lists. Especially with the great review that OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) gave it last month. The game looks great and has a much better feel than the last game that was released in the series. This game will surely make a great addition to your game collection. It is probably the best tennis game made and released in the last 5 years! So if you enjoy playing tennis, but haven’t been able to find a game that fully expresses your enjoyment for tennis, this is the game for you and anyone you can play with. This game will be released on may 19th. Wow, thats soon!

2. World in Conflict: What could possibly beat a game that has you in a parallel universe in which the cold war never ended? Sounds cool, huh? Well that world is your playground in the recent released game World in conflict. The game looks great and I have been eager to play it. The only reason that I have not been able to get my hands on it as of yet is because I did not have a graphics card that could handle the amazing graphics that the game has to handle. With my new graphics card, however, I am definitely going to get this game soon. So expect a game review on the horizon. One of the features that I am looking forward to experimenting with is the feature that allows you to build your own Cold War map to battle on with your online friends. Can’t wait!

3. Guild Wars: I enjoy MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) but I really hate that you have to pay a monthly payment to in order to play the game that you just spent $30 on. There is a solution to that craving that won’t take a chunk out of your pocketbook and that is the great game Guild Wars. There are many features to this game that I want to try out. There are two types of game play that you can play on this game. You can either choose to play the game as a PvP environment, where you can make guilds with other players, or you can choose to play it as a single player experience. This game looks like it can get really addicting and you might forget to eat as the hours go by.

4. Bully: Scholarship Edition: You just can’t games these days that have you giving wedgies to nerds that can hardly keep their glasses on straight. The developers of the GTA (Grand Theft Auto) series, Rock Star Games, have remastered an ingenious game called Bully. In the game you are able to do all of the acts that you would expect to see a bully do in a old fashioned high school. The game has been remastered from the original PS2 (Playstation 2) game to work on next gen consoles in a way that it has never worked before. I want to get this game a great deal because the game looks great and you can never get tired of playing a game that feels this great.

Stay tuned for more games coming later this week!

The release date for Too human has been set for August, 19 2008. Now is the time to get all of those pre-orders registered!

Too human is a good looking game on the horizon for a release some time in 2008. The theme of this first story is discovery. It is the first story of supposedly many stories that are going to be released from this company. In anticipation of the up coming game here is a review of the basics of the game, the characters, the weapons, and the plot line.

Too human is based on Norse/Viking mythology but put into a different time period. The god that this game focuses on the most is Baldur, the god of Peace. Even though he is not the god that stands out the most in viking mythology there is supposedly a hidden meaning behind making him the main character of this first game. There are actual characters and creatures from the mythology and the storyline is taken directly from the ancient myths. The game takes place some time in the future when man kind is pitted against monster cybernetic machines including advanced dark elves, goblins, spider-people, and trolls. The reason that this game is called Too Human is to make you think about what the effects of cybernetic people would be in the world and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

There are only a few people that are capable of stopping the attack and these are cybernetic people that use a strange combination of magic, weaponry, and strength to defend against the threat. These people are normal people that have been cyberneticly advanced so that they seem like gods because all of the technology that they have makes them seem like they have magical powers. I think that this is a really cool way to tell the stories of the viking gods as the vikings heard them thousands of years ago.

The combat system that is set up for this game is set up to make you feel like you are a god amongst men where every battle is epic and you are able to kill armies and armies of the enemies without getting more than a scratch. I think that this is a really cool feature that most games try to make you feel but not to the extent that Too Human is. The control set up is very simple and easy to use as you just move the two thumb sticks around to attack the opponents. You can also use a finisher move that is a instant kill on one opponent and a fierce attack that can be triggered from far away that can do damage to enemies that explode so that you won’t get hurt. It will be interesting to see how Too Human can keep you interested in the battle sequences with such easy controls as these but I have no doubt that they will be able to pull it off.

There are several different types of character classes/archetypes in the game including Berserker, Commando, Champion, Defender, and BioEngineer. There are peaks to each archetype.

The Berserker is a fast moving, heavy hitting animal with only one weakness, Health.

The Commando is basically an all around shooter. He has more ammo than the other classes, he can shoot further, and he can reload faster.

The Champion is probably the most evenly distributed class and it has basic all around weapons. It easily accustoms itself to your every whim and it does most of its damage by throwing its enemies in the air.

The Defender class can easily be described as the tank of the group because it can take a lot of hits and it uses laser weapons, hammers, and shields.

The BioEngineer is a unit that bases itself on using magic to do all of its dirty work.

Too Human - E3 2K6 Trailer 2 - More amazing videos are a click awayAs the game goes on the enemies that you face start to learn and upgrade to attack at your weaknesses. At the beginning the enemies attack in small groups with weak attacks but as the game goes on enemies start to get better attacks and begin attacking in full battalions. This is a cool aspect to the game that I cannot wait to experience.

All and all I can’t wait for the release some time in the Fall of 2008 because this game is totally awesome and I can’t wait to play it.

The new Halo 3 legendary map pack was released last week with some cool last minute things. Every one that downloaded the packs in the first week that they came out received a free 24 slot expansion to their file sharing account. The maps included Ghost Town, Avalanche, and Blackout. The vehicles on Avalanche are the only big difference that these new maps offer because all of the vehicles have a white paint job and the hornet can not fire rockets. The new maps sure look great and Bungie has done a really great job here.

Battlefield Heroes has been recently introduced and is up four release soon for PC users. The game is free to play and is not base on the gritty reality of world war 2, instead it has been created to look more like a cartoon. There is a lot to say about this game because the developers of the game have packed it full of so much stuff that it is hard to narrow it down into this blog. However I will try my best.

None of the battles depicted in the game are real historic events. Instead of the axis and the allied powers, there is one force called the royal army and another force called the national army. The game focuses on things like special abilities, shooting the bad guys, and trying to run people over with a tank. Good matchmaking allows you to play with people that are at your specific skill level. In the game characters are very customizable and look great. There is also a territorial meta-game that looks like loads of fun.

The game is a new and unique look for the WWII franchise and will definitely be a big hit with anyone who likes games about WWII. The game will be distributed later this year.