Nintendo News

Nintendo has announced that they will not be hosting a press conference at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata states that they will instead be hosting several small events to showcase upcoming games and hardware for the Wii-U. Some of the upcoming Wii-U games will appear at E3, however no new hardware will be announced. Nintendo will be conveying this information through other sources, such as Nintendo Direct.

Also, the Nintendo Miiverse is expanding. Players can now view their friends Miis from any PC or smart device. This is well accommodated  as 80% of 3.45 million Wii-U's are connected to the internet, which is record breaking for a Nintendo console.

Xbox 720 reveal

Microsoft has released that the reveal event for the Xbox 720 will be on May 21.  This will "give you a real taste of the future" as the next generation of Xbox is shown. Microsoft also states that they will have several games that they will be showcasing at E3 two weeks later.

Ratchet & Clank Movie announced

Insomniac has announced that a theatrical Ratchet & Clank film is set to be released in 2015.  The production studios involved are Rainmaker Entertainment, involved in Escape from Planet Earth, and Blockade Entertainment. Insomniac Games is playing a huge role in the development of the film.  Also, actors James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, and Jim Ward are all returning to play Ratchet, Clank, and Captain Qwark respectively.

New Tomb Raider Movie

To go along with the recent reboot of the Tomb Raider game series, MGM studios has announced that a Tomb Raider film is in production. MGM will be working with GK films on this project. The film will be based on the new Tomb Raider, and is not related to the two Tomb Raider films that were already released.

Crysis 3 Review

Crysis 3 picks up some time after Crysis 2 with Psycho ( protagonist of Crysis: Warhead) who has recently been taken out of his Nanosuit storms a CELL facility to free Prophet who has been captured. Once freed you take control of Prophet who along with Psycho enters the New York Liberty Dome to take down CELL. But then Things go crazy and the alien race from the other games known as the Ceph return and Prophet must once again stop the world from being destroyed. The Story while not great is definitely the best in the series. This is primarily because Crytek has decided to make Prophet more than just a husk that the player inhabits. Although sometimes the tale told can get way too melodramatic. But I the story doesn't really matter because it's still bogged down by the other games continuity, so it still just winds up being nonsense.

Crysis 3 as you probably already know is absolutely gorgeous especially the over grown areas of New York City. For Crysis 3 Crytek has decided to go for a healthy medium between The wide open world of the original Crysis and the guided nature of Crysis 2, with the beginning being more guided and the later stages becoming a lot more open with multiple paths and plenty of areas that are off the beaten path. Crysis 3 has you going from wide open sections of an overgrown New York City and the completely unremarkable structures set up by the Cell corporation, with the later seeming to be the majority of the game. Crytek has also added an incredibly boring driving sequnce in the middle of the game. 

Crysis 3's gameplay is all about the choice of playing stealthily with your cloak or going guns blazing with maximum armor, but since neither is done incredibly well it just leads to the game being a bit boring. The really big addition of Crysis 3 is the bow and arrow which allows you to stay cloaked while firing, but since it's a one hit kill it just winds up being overpowered if your playing stealth. Meaning all you'll do is enter an area mark all of the enemies in the environment and pick everyone off with the bow, then go and collect your arrows and do it all again in the next area. If your playing guns blazing then the bow becomes absolutely worthless because of the slow firing rate.

Once done with the single player you can jump into the multiplayer which is proficient if not soulless. Coming packed with the standard multiplayer fare. The only mode that is interesting is the Hunter mode which has two players as guys in Nanosuits with unlimited health and a bow going up against a group of cell operatives who as they fall become Hunters.

This game is an incredibly successful tech demo that gives a look into what the next generation will look like, but lets hope that Crytek lets Crysis go and does something else. But Crysis 3 remains a consistently well made game if not one that is incredibly uninteresting.

6.0/10  

        

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review

Metal Gear Rising is finally here after a rather interesting development time, including the project being canceled at one point and changing devs from Kojima Productions to Platinum Games. The story of Rising is one that doesn't make a lot of sense but hey it's a Metal Gear game. But anyway here's the basic idea the game starts off 4 years after MGS4 with Raiden working at a PMC called Maverick, which has him protecting Prime Minister N'mani. N'mani is then kidnapped and murdered by a group of terrorists and this then leads Raiden down a path of revenge and vengeance, which is how you get the awful tittle Revengeance. Where Raiden finds out that the groups main goal is to kidnap children and turn them into cyborgs. My main complaint is that the new characters introduced are really boring and flat. Also Why is Raiden a cyborg again after having the seemingly happy ending in Metal Gear Solid 4. Its not awful they just don't do a good job of catching you up on whats happened over the last 4 years but it's still nice seeing some of the characters from previous Metal Gear games.

Platinum Games has managed to make one of the coolest looking games I've seen but with some small problems when it comes to control. First off this game is nuts but peaks really early with the first level being the highlight with a fantastic boss battle with Metal Gear Ray. After that the game while still incredibly cool still seems to constantly be trying to get back to that level of cool. 

But the main problem comes with the games horrid parrying mechanic, which has you tapping the light attack button and holding the left analog stick in the direction you are being attacked, this all feels incredibly imprecise. Rising also has plenty of camera problems that doesn't help the parrying problem constantly being caught in awkward positions. Also the combat isn't very deep and just becomes random button pushing at a certain point. But aside from the simple combat the main gameplay mechanic Blade Mode is always fun to use. Blade Mode allows you to enter a state that slows down times and allows you to control your sword with incredible precision. The game also features some great boss battles besides the aforementioned Ray battle with a particularly fun final boss. Platinum has done a great job of injecting their crazy over the top action into the Metal Gear universe.

With all that said I still find Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance a welcome addition to the Metal Gear universe and I feel as though the sequel to this game will be great. Metal Gear Rising is a game with some minor control problems that never stops looking cool.

7.5/10  

Dead Space 3 Review

In 2008 EA’s Dead Space game was released.  Then, some spin off games came out and then the second Dead Space was released. The Dead Space series has been one of my favorite series ever since the first one came out. Now in Dead Space 3, the story takes place 2 months after the events that occurred in Dead Space 2. Isaac Clarke teams up with Earth Gov and has a new mission. Now venture in Ice planet Tau Volantis to destroy the marker once and for all.

 

The game has the same controls as the other 2 Dead Space games. But instead of buying weapons, you can build your weapons by finding parts. You can build the classic weapon as well.  A couple of new features include getting scavenger bots, which can help find parts. You don’t have to face the necromorph sprawl alone; you have the option to co-op with a friend online.  I really like the build your own weapon system. You can be creative and you can share blueprints of weapons you built with your friends.  The co-op is a lot fun too. There are some missions that you only do in co-op and you find out more about the second player’s character named Carver. This game is very well developed. The graphics are really well done and the necromorphs are grossly detailed. There are not many glitches in the game that I have encountered. I don’t like some of the armor design that well in this game. I like Isaac’s snow suit, it looks awesome and Carver’s Special Forces suit is nice too.

But overall I think it is a great game. I recommend playing it especially with a friend.

8.5/10