This week we see the release of two highly anticipated games in Soul Calibur V and Final Fantasy XIII-2 both for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 platforms. After looking at the deals on these games this week it appears Target has the best value for your dollar as they are giving away a $20 Gift Card with each game. Some mixed reports are coming in stating that the gift card is available for use right away so those of you picking up both titles might want to have your purchase done in two transactions to you can try applying the card to your other game.

Are you planning on picking up either of these titles this week or will you wait for the eventual price drop?

THE STORY:
Dead Island is pretty much a combination of Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising with a bit of Fallout mixed in. You start the game as one of four survivors who just happen to be immune to the virus that is making everyone on the island turn into zombies. Someone finds you lying on the ground passed out after a zombie attack and takes you back to their safe haven.

Initially your job is to pretty much do everything for the other survivors since you’re immune; they figure you’re the best person to take out all the zombies to secure other safe places to hide and to play fetch getting supplies and items that people want or left behind. Your ultimate goal in the game is to find a cure for the virus, or if all else fails, get off the island… which pretty much the same goal as every zombie game and movie out to date. Unlike most zombie games, however, Dead Island isn’t set in a post apocalyptic dark and dingy looking city; it takes place on a beautiful fictional island called Banoi which is a nice change from the norm.

THE CHARACTERS:
Dead Island gives you the choice of playing as one of four characters: Xian an employee at Royal Palms Resort, Sam a one-hit wonder rap star, Logan a former NFL star, and Purna a former officer of the New South Wales Police Force. Each character has a specific skill that they specialize in as well as different health, stamina and speed ratings. What I found interesting about these characters is that they all have a type of personality that most people not only can’t relate to, but most people really don’t like. I also found that the characters that you run into throughout the game both for the main storyline and the side missions all seem very dull and lifeless, which didn’t make me very motivated to help them.

QUESTS:
The main storyline has you finding safe areas to hide, getting supplies to fix equipment or vehicles, disposing of rotting corpses and looking for a vaccine, but the side quests are rather repetitive and boring. Most quests will just have you going from one place to another then back again with lots of zombies obstructing your path which gets old pretty fast. I found myself getting bored of doing sidequests after doing just a few due to the repetitive nature of the quests. I also found the quests where you have to protect another survivor to be the most annoying as the characters tend to either just stand in one spot or slowly walk. I’ve even had a character walk all the way to the goal, stop, turn around, and run back to where we started our quest. After running all the way back to the starting point to protect her she just turned around and jogged back to the spot she was supposed to be at in the first place. Glitches like this were something I encountered frequently in quests and it was rather annoying.

ZOMBIES:
I was pretty impressed with the zombies in this game. The zombies range from bigger sluggish zombies that you can see coming from a mile away and can just kick to death, to zombies who will rush at you beating you down with a rusty pole. I wasn’t too used to zombies wielding weapons so that totally caught me off guard the first time I saw it. While most of the zombies you encounter are the run at you screaming and flailing around types, there are a few special zombies that you have to watch out for. Special zombies include The Suicider, The Butcher, The Thug, The Ram, and finally The Floater, an enemy covered in slime with large red eyes who vomits slime similar to Left 4 Dead’s Boomer. These zombies require a more strategic method to kill them. I also like that the zombies level up along with you throughout the game. Unlike what was seen in the trailer, however, zombie children are not found in the game.

WEAPONS:
The weapons selection in this game is pretty impressive. The fact that you can walk along the beach and pick up an oar or walk in a room and grab a coat rack to beat down zombies with means you’ll never be without a weapon. On top of the long list of regular weapons in the game, there’s an even bigger list of various items that you can find and use to modify your weapons creating even more destructive ways to obliterate the enemies. One thing I really loved about the game is the fact that the developers hid “skulls” in the game which when found and placed will give the player a blueprint for special modifications. Unfortunately most of the guns aren’t found until toward the end of the game though, so most of the time you’re going to have to utilize random objects you find and modify, or earn modified weapons by completing missions.

The downside to weapons in this game is that they have a life span and slowly break down as you use them, so you’ll have to constantly find workbenches to repair them dishing out lots of money each time you do so.

COMBAT:
I personally didn’t like the way the combat felt in this game. For the most part I found myself flailing a machete around hoping for a lucky strike chopping off the head. There was supposed to be a way to target specific limbs but I never really got that to work out. I was, however, very impressed with the damage layering that they put into the game making it so that you could see the damage you inflicted on the zombie as every hit took a chunk of meat off. It looked a lot more realistic than most games.

I also found it rather funny that one of the most effective attacks in the game was the kick. With a swift kick you can not only knock a zombie down, but you can also kick them to death. A kick is also the only move in the game that can’t be interrupted by the enemy.

DRIVING:
First of all you’re driving on the right side which is not the norm and takes a bit to get used to. On top of driving on the right side, the car is pretty unresponsive when it comes to steering and breaking and the windshield usually shatters within the first couple times you hit something causing your character to have to bust it out just to see. The vehicles are great for one thing though… running over zombies! I felt like I was playing Grand Theft Auto as I hijacked a truck from another survivor’s hideout and used it to run over every zombie I found gaining massive amounts of easy experience points.

MULTI-PLAYER:
One of the features I both loved and hated about this game is the fact that there’s drop in-drop out multi-player. I liked that you see a little message telling you that there’s a player nearby that is at the same point in the story as you and you can choose to join them if you’d like. That’s so much better than having to deal with lobbies and waiting to find people to play with. I found this game is much more enjoyable when played with 3 other people instead of solo.

The bad part of random people joining your game is that you can have people with a much higher level of experience than you joining your game and killing all the zombies before you get a chance to even take a swing at them. While you might say “what’s wrong with that? That makes it easier for me!” the problem is that you won’t level up if they kill all the enemies, and on top of that all the items dropped by zombies killed by them will be weapons that you have to be at their experience level in order to pick up.

Another negative to the game is that there is no local multi-player split screen, so you need an XBL gold account if you want to play online with other players.

GLITCHES:
From annoying glitches like the radar telling you the wrong way to go or updating late, zombie body parts coming through solid walls or doors to hit you or even worse, mission glitches and save glitches, this game definitely full of issues that can cause you grief. This game also has some glitches which people have exploited to get things like unlimited ammo, items needed for upgrading weapons such as batteries and diamonds as well which will give you millions of dollars if traded in.

GAMEPLAY/REPLAY VALUE:
This game can be beaten in about 6 hours if you stick to the main storyline and know exactly where to go, and can provide around 25 hours or more of gameplay if you decide to do the side missions and explore the island more. Once you beat the game you’re given the option of starting over again but this time with all your abilities, items, weapons, money, etc. which can make the game more enjoyable the second time around.

Overall if you’re into zombie games and like the Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising series you’ll probably love this game. The game has pretty good replay value so it’s not a waste if you buy it, and with the game being found online for around $40 I’d say it’s completely worth buying. There’s always a new area you can explore, skulls to find, and new weapons to create to make your next playthrough better than the last. I highly recommend playing this game with friends for the best experience though so if you don’t already have an XBL gold account, now would be a good time to look into getting one.

In just a few days the UK’s largest gaming expo will take place. Eurogamer Expo will take place form Sept. 22-25. This post will be dedicated to bringing you new gameplay videos, new announcements. Check back for more!

SWTOR Release date announced:

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/bioware-announces-sw-tor-date

Uncharted 3 short multiplayer video:

Wipeout 2048 Gameplay on PS VITA:

Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One Review

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in the year 2027 when human augmentation is no longer a thought, but reality. You play the game as Adam Jensen, head of security at Sarif Industries, a company specializing in human augmentation and weapons design. After a raid at Sarif Industries, Adam wakes up to find himself involuntarily heavily modified with augmentations for his eyes, lungs, arms, and legs. It was explained that these augmentations are the only reason that he’s even alive. Adam also finds out that his former love interest, Megan Reed who had just had a breakthrough in the augmentation technology, along with many others died during the raid. Seeking answers, Adam embarks on a quest that takes him around the world to find those responsible.

When I first saw this game I saw what I now realize were trailers that consisted solely of cut scenes from the game along with other additional cinematic footage not found in the game. After watching these promotional trailers I was left thinking that this was a run and gun, slash em up action packed type of game, but this was also the first time I had even heard of the game so I was not familiar with the series.  What I learned from playing was that this game is a sandbox style stealth game that is best described as the basic storyline from Repo Men (minus the organ failure/repossession parts), the stealth of Metal Gear, and the overall feel of Mass Effect.

STORY:

The storyline is pretty good, and it’s the key factor that kept me playing the game. While I wasn’t having much fun trying to be stealthy going from one room to another via maneuvering through air vents, hacking doors and security systems and silently assassinating enemies and disposing of the bodies, once the storyline progressed and more options opened up, I was finding the game more and more enjoyable. I played the game before any major patches were released so I found some of the side missions to be rather buggy and even encountered the Motherly Ties glitch which resulted in me wasting  quite some time on a quest that I later found out was impossible to complete due to my earlier decisions. For some people, they never encountered any bugs or glitches, especially if they were on the PC version, (which I heard was a lot more solid) but I personally ran into a few of them due to my non-linear style of playing and “shoot everything that moves” mentality when playing. While these glitches made me dislike the game to a point I was ready to put it down about halfway through, I decided to abandon all side quests and put my focus on the main storyline which sucked me in and turned out to be the best decision I could have made.

While Jensen starts off the game with some augmentations, the game revolves around his ability to turn on some the augmentations that were initially left off upon instillation, on top of enhancing those augmentations. Throughout the game you gain experience points by discovering air vents, successfully hacking systems, taking out enemies in a non-lethal way, and by completing missions. Once you earn a significant amount of EXP you then earn Praxis points which you can use to unlock more abilities such as temporary invisibility, damage reduction, the ability to see through walls, the ability to persuade people and much more. For the gamer who doesn’t want to have to work too much to unlock these abilities, there are also the local LIMB clinics where you can purchase Praxis kits which can also be used to unlock more abilities, but the amount of Praxis kits you can purchase is limited.

GRAPHICS:

Graphically the cutscenes were stunning, but I wanted a bit more visually from the normal gameplay. The characters mouths were very out of sync when talking, some of the character animations were very robotic, and considering how many similar games are out there that were made years ago, I was expecting the graphics to be on par with those at the very least. While the quality of the in game graphics was a bit disappointing, it didn’t hinder the gameplay. This was just another let down after seeing the amazing trailers on youtube.

HACKING:

One of the key parts to playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution is hacking. The hacking system was probably one of the features I liked the least in the game. One of the key elements to getting into secure locations, and accessing important information in computers is to “hack” the system. Hacking consists of capturing nodes before the timer reaches zero as your location will be known and you will be booted from the system. A failed hack results in being temporarily shut out of the system with limited attempts left to try again and having to deal with guards that will then swarm the area and/or security bots which will come shoot at you making the rest of your mission quite a bit harder as the whole building will be on temporary alert until you shut down the alarms. I found hacking a bit harder to do on 360 than it probably is on PC. On PC you can just move around the area with the mouse really fast and click directly on the nodes you want to work on, whereas on 360 you have to maneuver onto a node with the less accurate left analog stick. It’s a slower process hacking on the 360 version, but it can be done. While hacking into most of the major security systems will require a player to level up their augmented hacking skills, I was happy to see that pretty much all of the doors, computers and other “must hack” systems in the game remained at level 1 in case you decide that you don’t want to waste your Praxis points on that particular skill. You can also find passwords/codes for some of these systems if you search inside desks or search the bodies of those you knocked out, so not everything HAS to be hacked. Entering a password/code will not yield any EXP however, so if you cheat by looking that stuff up online… NO EXP FOR YOU!

While you can hack any computer or door with a security system attached to it you never see any sort of ATM machine or anything actually worth hacking. That’s something else I found disappointing. I mean, if you’re going to call it “hacking” shouldn’t there be a level 5 ATM you can hack to get some cash to purchase items? And why do I have to pay for items? The purchases of all items are done through a computer… why can’t I hack that computer to give me a 0 balance for all my items? On top of that most of the time when I am hacking a computer I’m just reading emails about how people have reached their max capacity in their email or how some co workers were having a fling on their break and are thankful they didn’t get caught. I used my stop virus for THAT? Probably my biggest upset when hacking was when I hacked into a computer to gain access to the police armory and was not able to take the SWAT bullet proof vests and helmet. Things like this would make hacking actually worth it, but are not in the game… so enjoy reading spam mail from Nigeria, because you’ll see a lot of that!

STEALTH:

Another key part to playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the ability to be stealthy. While I personally went the “run and gun” route with the occasional invisibility to sneak past major threats whenever possible, stealth is encouraged throughout the game by limiting your options by not making many weapons or ammo available to you in the beginning of the game. Being “stealthy” doesn’t just consist of traveling through air vents or underground tunnels; it also consists of pressing up against walls with the Left Trigger (LT) to avoid being seen. This feature I found to be slightly annoying as the character seems to snap to only one segment of a wall at a time. For example: if you are following a wall that comes out in a rectangle shape you must hold A to make the transition from one side of the wall to the next. On top of that I also encountered a few issues with snapping to the wrong wall or object when attempting to hide from an enemy which put me in their direct line of sight resulting in being shot at. Not too fun!

While being ninja-like is hard to do, there is a way to beat the game without any sort of confrontation aside from the bosses if you max out the right abilities and know where to look for alternative routes. This feature adds a whole new level of difficulty to the game that is pretty unique, although I noticed that the stealthier you are, the longer this game is going to take you to beat. With the average playthrough being somewhere between 20 to 45 hours, you may not want to try to tackle THAT task unless you have a lot of time to set aside for that.

WEAPONS:

There is a wide selection of weapons in this game. Not so many non-lethal weapons if you decide to go that route, but for the lethal route you have everything from a pistol to a rocket launcher at your disposal. On top of the wide selection of weapons, the weapons can be upgraded throughout the game as you find modification boxes for increased ammo capacity, silencer add on’s as well as cool down systems for the heavy artillery. I was extremely impressed. I was not, however, too happy about how you have to go into another screen to swap out your weapon. It would be nice to just hit the Y button and be able to swap through the various guns like in other shooter games, however that was not an option.

Players can also hack into systems and turn turrets and robots against enemies, and those make for the best weapons in the game! There’s nothing better than turning a turret to “enemy” and carrying it around letting it take care of all the baddies for you. I have to admit, I almost made it through an entire level doing this… and it was BAD ASS!

BOSSES:

While I’m not a fan of boss fights in games, I found the bosses in this game to be embarrassingly easy no matter what difficulty you play on. The only time I encountered any sort of issue was when I made a poor choice in the storyline which made one of the boss battles a bit harder, but once I learned this bosses pattern he went down relatively quick. The final boss battle I completed in less than 60 seconds on my second run, with my first run only being about 2 minutes. While I personally dislike boss battles in games I feel like if you’re going to put a boss battle there, you might as well make it challenging. If you look on youtube you’ll discover that all three bosses can be defeated within 1 minute which is rather disappointing. In my opinion one level of normal gameplay is much harder than all three boss battles combined. For those of you who believe boss battles don’t belong in these kinds of games, at least you know that you won’t have any problem getting past them!

SIDE QUESTS:

While the game is a sandbox game of sorts, the main storyline keeps the game very linear as you have no options of how you want the story to go up until the very end. Unfortunately the side quests don’t change the story at all… they don’t really do anything except raise your gamerscore. There was only one side quest that I encountered that actually affected the gameplay and that only lasted for one boss fight. While completing side missions in other games like Fallout will yield a custom ending with additional clips showing the results of your completed side missions, you won’t get anything like that in this game. The only side missions that really affect the game are the final two side missions you are given in the very last level, and even then you’re shown one of four speeches/ montages which don’t tell you anything about what you’ve personally done or how it’s affected those involved on your journey, which was very disappointing to me. Your actions don’t even affect how others treat you aside from people acting temporarily scared while the “alarmed” status is in effect. You can literally just wait a minute for the status to go away and everyone goes back to acting like normal again, unlike in games like Fable where your actions result in long term reactions from the characters in the game and how they act around you.

NEGATIVES:

There is no chapter select option. This is something I didn’t like too much because after finding out that I made a bad choice in the story that affected me later on in the game I wanted to go back and start from that point again and change my decision, and found that was not an option. When you load up one of your previous saves for the first time you land on a screen that shows you each of the chapters you have completed and you can hover over each one reading a brief description about it, however you are unable to select it. The average player is not going to create a separate save file for each mission, so it would be nice to have the ability to start playing from any previous point in time that you would like instead of having to start completely over again if you don’t have a save file that goes back far enough.

If you take down a person in a non lethal way they are down for the count for the rest of the game unless another person comes and wakes them up. I found this fact is very important in the game. If you knock out several people in one room and there is no security camera to see them there will be no one to come wake them up. Why does that matter? You could just unknowingly knock out someone that is important to a side mission, and even though you didn’t kill them, you might as well have because you’ll get the same result if someone doesn’t wake them up… Mission failure. I found this out the hard way.

Your energy bar never regenerates past one bars worth, leaving you constantly hunting for energy bars/packs, etc. to replenish it enough to actually use your powers. Since most abilities (such as the ability to turn invisible) are based on using energy it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where you’re forced to either hide or fight until you can find more energy bars.

The game has a lot of random glitches/bugs. While I was told some of the bigger one (like the Motherly Ties Glitch) have been fixed in the latest patch, I found lots of clipping/collision issues throughout the game. While most of the time it involved dead bodies just clipping through each other on the floor, I did have a couple incidents that actually affected my gameplay. Here’s just a couple examples: Issue 1- I move a dumpster next to a fence next to the police station so that I could jump the fence. I walked away to go find another box to help aid me in making it over and as I walked away I see “HOSTILE” status on my radar. I turn around to see the cop who was 10 feet away from the dumpster walking toward it on his routine check around the building was now underneath the dumpster dead. Every cop in the area was shooting at me for “killing’ this officer when I was nowhere near him and have no idea how that happened. Issue 2- I was in a warehouse and was playing peek-a-boo with enemies peeking out from a door to shoot then going back in to reload, one enemy just walked right through the door without opening it and shot me right in the face. An arm sticking through a door that is shut in their face is one thing, but straight up walking through closed doors is just not cool! Luckily this issue was one I only encountered a few times in my 30+ hours of playing.

POSITIVES:

Multiple endings provide for at least one ending you’ll find at least somewhat satisfying. There’s even a little bonus if you stick around past the end credits.

Multiple side quests and achievements add to the replay value of the game by keeping you busy for hours and giving you tons more information about everyone involved.

 FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall I thought the game was good, but it did not live up to my expectations. I found the game most enjoyable when playing just the main story line and it didn’t really grab my attention until the last third or so of the game. I will say this though… the last third of the game is pretty awesome!

Is this game worth buying? It depends on the type of games you like honestly. If you’re into stealth games you’ll probably love this. If you’re a fan of Mass Effect there’s a good chance you’ll find this at least interesting and it’ll be worth a run through for you. If you’re into FPS games where you just run around and kill everything, you might not like this game as there is a considerable amount of times when you’re required to sneak and hack. The fact that there’s achievements for completing side missions and accomplishing other tasks all in a single run through make it so that it does have some replay value, so it’s not a total waste if you DO end up buying it. I personally think this game is worth a rent from Gamefly if this is not your normal type of game. A good week or two is probably enough time for you to fully experience this game.

PAX 2011 finished today. Overall not a lot of new news. If you missed the post about Gamescom 2011 be sure to scroll down and take a look at the videos of the biggest news. Thanks!

*8-28-11* Star Wars” The Old Republic beta weekends start on September 2nd.

New Campaign Trailer for Halo Anniversary

New Footage of Huttball for Star Wars: The Old Republic

New Screenshots of Borderlands 2 (photos from Gematsu.com)

]]> http://www.metagamers.com/2011/08/pax-2011-news-and-coverage/feed/ 0 http://www.metagamers.com/2011/08/gamescom-2011-coverage-with-updates/ http://www.metagamers.com/2011/08/gamescom-2011-coverage-with-updates/#comments Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:29:41 +0000 Vulcan4770 http://www.metagamers.com/?p=215

Its that time of year again! We are in the middle of Gamescom 2011, it takes place in Cologne, Germany from the 18-21 of August. There is new news about Star Wars: The Old Republic, Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception, various EA games, along with much more! Check back here for updated/breaking news.

*Last updated at 8-21-2011*

Big News:

Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Gameplay

New trailer for Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception:

New Warzone for Star Wars: The Old Republic

New Assasin’s Creed Revelations Trailer:

DOTA 2 Trailer:

It’s official, the PS Vita has been delayed until sometime in calendar year 2012 (US & EU).  Japan will still see the Vita this holiday season (December 2011).

Sony Computer Entertainment’s CEO Kaz Hirai did not give any indication of a specific release date outside of the 2012 calendar year however, he did state that the original pricing announced at E3 this past year should not change ($249.99 & $299.99).

So there you have it. With the delay of the PS Vita and the Nintendo 3DS dropping in price does this change your mind on what portable gaming device to buy?

It would seem it’s Nintendo’s holiday to potentially win (at least in the hand held market).

Big news for you Borderlands fans out there. Gearbox has stated that they will release Borderlands 2 in 2012 on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

The new game will take you to areas of the Pandora planet and feature all new characters, skills, enviornments, enemies, weapons and equipment.

Gearbox has plans to show its first footage from the game at the upcoming Gamescom and again at PAX Prime.

Touch Arcade (www.toucharcade.com) is reporting that the long awaited Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions should make its way to the iPhone & iPod Touch this Thursday for around $15.99. It is expected that the iPad version will be pretty close behind with a release about one month later.

Do you plan on picking this one up? Personally, I’ll wait until the iPad version is released as I find playing games like this on the larger screen is more enjoyable.