Dec 10
Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to announce Sins of a Solar Empire – Trinity today. Trinity is a compilation bundle which includes the award-winning Sins of a Solar Empire along with the Entrenchment and Diplomacy micro-expansions. As a special incentive, those who pre-order Trinity will gain access to the current Diplomacy beta via Impulse.
Sins of a Solar Empire – Trinity takes players through 25 years of warfare beginning with the real-time strategy game that started it all. In Sins of a Solar Empire, the independent Trader Worlds are forced to unite in order to defend themselves from the alien Vasari menace and the return of their exiled brethren, the Advent. The Entrenchment expansion jumps forward 15 years to a time of stalemate between the factions when they fortify the territories they control with powerful starbases, mine fields and advanced defenses. Diplomacy takes the player to the current day, when the constraint toil of war has taken its heavy toll. Some speak of peace, while others see such Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: Ironclad
Dec 10
The Revered Survival Horror Game Franchise Makes Its Debut on Wii
Konami Digital Entertainment Inc., today announces that it has shipped the highly anticipated Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the latest release in the renowned horror game franchise, which has spawned a long list of video games, books and movies. Winner of several “Best of E3″ awards, the game is the first Silent Hill title to be released on Wii.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories begins much like the beloved original. The game opens to the scene following a car accident where the central character, Harry Mason, wakes to find his daughter Cheryl missing. Harry sets out into the snowy streets of the haunted town of Silent Hill to find her, and that’s where his living nightmare begins as he not only discovers the truth about his daughter, but also about himself.
The brand new interface requires players to Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: Konami
Dec 09
Sequel to Award-Winning Horror Game Delivers Intense, Personal Saga that Sends Chills through Deep Space
Visceral Games announced today that the award-winning Dead Space franchise will continue to frighten gamers with its stunning sequel, Dead Space 2. Hero Isaac Clarke returns for another heart-pounding adventure, taking the fight to the Necromorphs in this thrilling action-horror experience. New tools to gruesomely slice and dismember the Necromorphs complement Isaac’s signature Plasma Cutter, empowering him as he meets new characters, explores epic Zero-G environments, and fights against a relentless necromorph onslaught. Survival isn’t the only thing on Isaac’s mind in Dead Space 2 – this time, he calls the shots.
“Like so many gamers worldwide, we love the Dead Space franchise and are very excited to announce a new game in the series,” said Nick Earl, Senior VP and Group General Manager at EA. “Visceral Games is quickly becoming known for delivering high-quality, action-packed games. Dead Space 2 is Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: EA
Dec 08
International Edition of Sony and Level-5’s PS3-exclusive JRPG heading to North America in time for Valentine’s Day with expanded content.
For years, it was unclear whether Sony and Level-5’s Japanese role-playing game White Knight Chronicles would surface on the PlayStation 3 in the West. Having been announced during the 2006 Tokyo Game Show, White Knight Chronicles was released in Japan last Christmas, and as late as January 2009, Level-5 brass were unwilling to commit to a Western release.
Blue LEDs make EVERYTHING more awesome.
However, the “will it/won’t it” question appeared to be answered by April, when Sony and Level-5 began showing off the game to the Western gaming press. Today, Sony attached a firm North American release date, as well as a new subtitle, to the game, saying White Knight Chronicles: International Edition will hit store shelves February 2, 2010.
Posting to Sony’s PlayStation Blog, Level-5 associate product manager Cristian Cardona noted that White Knight Chronicles: International Edition will include a fully localized version of the JRPG, as well as a number of extras. The Western version will feature 50 additional on-disc online quests, with Cardona indicating that more quests will be available as downloadable content at launch.
Level-5 has also added The Georama to the International Edition. In this mode, players will be able to build an online village, from which gamers can invite friends to participate in quests as well as acquire unique items. The Western edition will also include more in-game dialogue options as well as online voice chat.
written by cimaul
\\ tags: JRPG
Dec 08
Metro 2033 was only unveiled for the first time last month, but now, just over a month later, publisher THQ has already allowed us to play the game. Based on the Russian novel of the same name, the game is set in a postapocalyptic future where a small group of survivors has stayed alive by taking refuge in the Moscow underground system. Given that setting, where better to let us play the game than in a disused nuclear bunker deep beneath the Russian capital? That’s the event we were invited to recently, which allowed us to spend a few hours with the game and talk to the Ukranian developer 4A Games, as well as the author of the original book, Dmitry Glukhovsky. We won’t retread over old ground in this preview, so if you’re unfamiliar with the setup for Metro 2033, make sure you read our original impressions piece. Our hands-on time with the game allowed us to experience the first few hours of it first hand, and while that included a lot of the areas we’d seen in our hands-off preview, we also got to see some new areas above ground. The leisurely pace of the preview allowed us to take our time exploring underground, witnessing the human interaction between non-player characters and the environmental details of the underground cities. It also unveiled new above-ground areas, which result in vivid flashbacks for the playable character of Artyom, who only experienced a short period of his life outside the metro system. But most of all, our hands-on time allowed us to get Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: THQ
Dec 07
As we get closer to BioShock 2’s February release, 2K Marin is finally opening up a bit about its upcoming sequel to BioShock. The original game was a careful balance of stunning design, rich story, and solid gameplay that surprised and delighted players. This time out there’s a slightly different mix to the qualities that made the original game special. While there’s still gorgeous design, the city of Rapture feels like a familiar place. While there are still some very cool things to surprise and delight players, a fair amount of BioShock 2’s punch is going to come from its story, which we can say, now that we’ve played a bunch of the game, is rich and disturbing. The downside to this is that previews will be spoiler minefields from here on out. We’ll go ahead and drop a spoiler warning here and say that while we’ll try to be sensitive, expect spoilage ahead.
Our look at the Xbox 360 version of the game started up right after the game’s opening cinematic (which 2K is still keeping under wraps), in a sequence titled “10 Years Later”. While the basic opening is similar to what we saw back in April for our first look, the sequence was now properly dropping into the game as opposed to a demo of edited gameplay designed to showcase various aspects of BioShock 2. You’ll still be roused to consciousness by Dr. Tennenbaum, last seen in the original game, who still hasn’t quite gotten her people skills down. You’ll get a quick, inelegant rundown of your situation: You’re a big daddy that has had his free will restored, and Tennenbaum needs you to haul tail to reach her. Your journey will send you through parts of Rapture that have never been seen, to find her in the old mass-transit terminal.
Your trek starts in the Adonis Luxury Resort, which has clearly seen better days. The once-fabulous spa is now run-down and awash with hazards in the form of splicers. While they are a problem, the splicers aren’t the life-threatening issue you faced at the start of the original game, but they do have numbers on their side, so some caution is required. This early part of the game is the tutorial to get Continue reading »
written by cimaul
Dec 07
When Pandemic Studios’ The Saboteur was unveiled in 2007, it certainly caught our attention. The story of an Irishman caught up in the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris sounded like an appealing setting for a video game. Inspired by the film-noir genre popular during that period, The Saboteur shows vast areas of the city constrained to a black-and-white gamut, with only the occasional splash of colour, which fans of Sin City will relish. The game is finally hitting shelves next month–almost three years after it was originally announced–and we got the chance to play through the first few hours. Before you read on and discover how The Saboteur begins, however, here’s a clear SPOILER ALERT: This preview reveals substantial plot details from the beginning of the game.
Things begin at The Belle, a cabaret club in Paris’s famed red-light district near Montmartre. We were instantly greeted by a dancer entertaining Nazi soldiers by wearing nothing but nipple tassels and lingerie. After this brief moment of titillation, we then met the game’s main character, roguish Irishman Sean Devlin. It seems Sean has fallen on Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: preview
