You know those companies that sell TV Games, the ones you plug directly into your goggle box and have 7 old arcade "classics" like Space Invaders and Worm, well, they've now released a Portable Mega Drive, with 20 games already loaded onto it. It'll retail for about thirty quid and takes batteries of some description. So far so meh, what I take odds with is the fact they're claiming it's the world's first hand held mega drive. What about the Nomad? I'm pretty sure that was a hand held Megadrive/Genesis/whatever.
If you're interested in reliving the olden days when Sega ruled the world and everything was much better than it is now, you can find more information on the Hand Held Megadrive by clicking right here. Or you could just get an Xbox Live account, most of the good games are on there anyway.
It's not the first trailer again, this one has sexified in game footage of 3d but not really 3d kicking and punching. And electrocution. The game certainly has a visual style all of it's own, and if it plays as well as it looks then we're all in for a massively violent flashy fighting renaissance. My excitement does not wane, and I shall remain excited until I am disappointed.
It's a teaser, it teases I suppose. No hint at gameplay, story, anything really. Just a backwards explosion. I suppose if you get excited about backwards explosions you're going to get excited over this. If you don't, then it's just another Tomb Raider game really. And to that I must say, yawn.
That'll be Quake 3 Arena, late nineties classic shooter, being played through a browser then. For nowt. Maybe it's not as good as UT, but for free, through Firefox or one of those other web browsers, you can't really complain now can you? Start chasing rockets... now.
EA's president John Riccitiello has announced that the most anticipated, hyped up, expected, rumoured, argued about game of recent years, the Bioware Knights of the Old Republic MMO is a reality. Rejoice. Dance in the streets.
Anyone unfamiliar with the abbreviations, this means that Bioware are making a massively multiplayer online RPG based around the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic universe. This is big news indeed. KotoR was a brilliant game, so brilliant I finished it twice, and I'm a bitter cynic.
Hopefully Bioware will be able to once and for all rid the world of the memory of Star Wars Galaxies and give us all the online Star Wars experience we deserve. Dibs on the evil robot.
As mentioned below, Portal: Still Alive is coming to a 360 near you in the future, exclusively. Above is the moment it was announced at E3. Not really that exciting, but when I hear robot voices I like to share.
Is it me, or is everything at this years E3 Microsoft based? Even the things that they haven't announced are getting more news space than the other manufacturers put together. I don't want you to think that we're being biased, but, well, Sony and Nintendo haven't really done anything that interesting.
The voice explaining the new 360 front end is Steve Willet, so you'll have to excuse the embarrassingly "hip" way he's trying to sell the new product, but I think we get the gist of it.
My personal opinion; dashboard redesign YAY! avatars, BOO!
So. Gears of War 2 is bigger, better and more bad-ass. Fable 2 "is finished". A true sequel to Geometry Wars is coming next month. The blades are out, and gamerpics with them; with the Autumn update, a new dashboard and silly social networking avatars are the new in thing. And as if the future doesn't look bright enough for Xbox 360 owners, Microsoft's massive bank balance finally broke the Sony faithful at Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIII is arriving day and date with the PS3 version to the red-ring a console near you!
Things will pick up later today on the other fronts of the fight for holiday supremacy. Nintendo have announced they'll be fixing the questionable motion controllers they shipped with the Wii - with add-ons! That'll cost money! Let's call them Wiimote 32x for jollies!
Sony, meanwhile, have been very, very quiet. The calm before a storm, we can hope. God of War 3 is a sure thing and I see lots of Little Big Planet before us. Resistance 2, Killzone 2, the new, supposedly downloadable adventures of Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank. Perhaps something from the Naughty Dog folks - a new Jak and Daxter, perhaps? But certainly the most exciting prospect is that of Team Ico's next project. With that alone, Sony could absolutely sweep the show.
Nintendo, for their part, have won no matter what; the faithful, let's be frank, are already broken and submissive. Animal Crossing alone will satiate their fanlust. And even if the big N shows poorly, they've already won the mainstream press, the money, the glory...
Microsoft may not have had their day, though, because in addition to all the in-house awesome, a trio of third-party IPs that have been rather under the radar till now have suddenly, if not exclusively, attached themselves to the Xbox 360. I'll let the trailers speak for themselves, but suffice it to say: creepy Event Horizon horror with a perverted Twinkle Twinkle Little Star soundtrack could well be a work of genius. For your terror, Dead Space:
And if we go wanting a new game from the auteurs that brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, there's always the startling re-imagining of the - or, rather, a - Prince of Persia:
Mirror's Edge, meanwhile, could prove to be the perfect little cherry on top. With a tip of the hat to Portal here and Assassin's Creed there, it's shaping up nevertheless to be a strikingly original new franchise:
RIP Sony Exclusivity - Final Fantasy XIII Coming to Xbox 360
Egads! Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the 360. It wasn't going to happen - Square Enix said as much themselves. And it probably shouldn't happen - already the talk is about degrees of disc-spanning and the fast the port won't likely come to Microsoft's console in Japan. But it's happening. In Europe and North America, Final Fantasy XIII will arrive day-and-date on the Xbox 360 and the PS3.
The particulars of that date remain to be seen. So does much in the way of new footage of the White Engine-powered RPG to rule them all. But Final Fantasy XIII is as breathtaking as ever. There's shiny everywhere and distinctly less androgyny than I expected. The action looks awe-inspiring, the vistas absolutely spectacular. Fear not the kanji squiggles and don't let the rousing Star Wars score put you off - here's the impressive E3 trailer for a game coming soon to a console near you, whatever your allegiance.
Except for Wii owners. They'll have EA's new baby game mode to enjoy - yay!
Next week expect Too Human, Silicon Knight's massively delayed and now insanely over hyped third person action RPG to finally get a demo on the 360, nine years after it was originally announced. For the PSone. Anyone in the 'know' knows that nine years, three consoles and a lot of internal and external wranglings, some of the legal variety, usually leave a game a shattered husk, void of all but the smallest spark of the idea that sired it so long ago.
Hopefully Too Human will prove me wrong, for a blend of Norse Mythology and cyber smashing is right up my high concept alleyway. The demo itself is all part of Microsoft's attempts to bring E3 to the bedrooms of all live enabled console users, allowing them to all but smell the sweat.
Expect videos, gamerpics, themes and all the usual gubbins when E3 opens its dark gates tomorrow.
Too many abbreviations for my liking, nevertheless, fan boys will no doubt be frothing at the yak hole for one reason or another. Expect a lot of this in the weeks leading up to, during and just after E3, where games publishers clamour to get one up on everyone else by out exclusiving the last big exclusive.
Not much to go on really, solid looking engine, classic fifties styling, pretty much what's to be expected from Fallout. Still, expect more to be coming out when E3 opens its doors later this month.
Isn't a bit ironic that a video game influenced heavilly by the stylised violence of action films is now being turned into an action film full of sytlised violence? Not really, no, it's just predictable. And about five years too late. Plus it's got Marky Mark, from Marky Mark and the Fun Bunch in it. He may be calling himself Mark Wahlberg nowadays, but I don't forget.
In what can only be described as the dullest leak ever, rumours are gathering pace that Microsoft is canning the 20gig version of it's console in favour of a much roomier 60 gig standard version. Phase outs will no doubt occur, during which time the product will be reestablished. And other such marketing gibberish.
In the end, if Microsoft do release a 60 gig hard drive, they'd best make it an awful lot cheaper than the extortionate 120gig drives, otherwise no one's going to buy it anyway. The exact quote is as follows:
"With the introduction of the 60GB Pro console in July, we have research that suggests it is very important to have a 60GB stand alone Hard Drive to go along with it to allow the consumer a full range of choices and values. In late October/early November (exact date TBD but most likely last week in October or 1st week in November), we will ship the Xbox 360 60GB Hard Drive, tentatively called the "Xbox 360 60GB LIVE Starter Pack."
That all comes from an email supposedly leaked and supposedly found by X-Box Family, a pro Microsoft site from the US. Is it true? Possibly, it makes sense to offer customers more choice, but whether or not it'll work is another matter.
David Hayter, voice of Solid Snake and the scribe who brought us such richly worded films as Xmen and X2: Xmen United, has announced that he is on the verge of penning a deal to write a film based on the Capcom freeze 'em up, Lost Planet. And the world says "so"?
The game, whilst playable enough, is hardly renowned for its exciting story and Hayter, well, neither is he. That said, the more films with giant robots in them the better if you ask me, and giant robots firing space shotguns at cockroaches in a snow covered wasteland is always gonna be visually arresting. Still, here's hoping the amnesia storyline from the game is abandoned in favour of anything else.
Harry brought word of Chrono Trigger DS to the Ace Gamez blog yesterday, and he's not alone in seeming genuinely hyped for Square Enix's latest remake. I'm right there with him - but I've an admission to make: despite decades of fascination with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and pretty much all things J-RPG, this game, for all the fervour and fanboyism that surrounds it, has languished on my pile-of-shame shortlist as long as I can remember caring about such things. Perhaps it's just the eternal quest to set aside enough time to play an older game holding me back; or it could be a nervousness that nothing can match ten years of outlandish promise. Whatever the cause, Squeenix are bringing Chrono Trigger back, and Chrono Cross isn't likely very far behind it.
Here's the teaser, courtesy of GameVideos:
It looks early yet - despite a promised release in Japan this holiday, all the gameplay in the trailer looks to have been captured directly from the original; there's no sign of a second-screen, touch fuctionality or the brand new dungeon, all of which the pre-eminent publisher/developer have promised. I'd wager that, here in the UK and throughout Europe, we're at least a year away from Chrono Trigger coming to the DS. Here's hoping Squeenix spend the time well. If any remake deserves more than a token port, it's this one.
Square Enix have announced that Chrono Trigger, the seminal SNES (Super Famicom) RPG will be hitting the Nintendo DS later in the year, in America at least. The only changes for the port will be a new dungeon and a Wireless Multiplayer mode, as is de rigeur with DS games nowadays.
Anyone who played the original Chrono Trigger knows how good it was, and anyone who didn't should probably buy the revamp and find out. Whether or not this will be a port of the original original or the PSone version with added cutscenes remains to be seen, but bearing in mind Square's ability to cram FMV sequences onto cartridges (look at FF3 and FF12: Revenant Wings), it's a decent bet to say it'll be the latter.
Whether or not the game will get a European release also remains unclear at this time, but fingers crossed, or otherwise I'm going to be mighty upset.
July the 7th sees the release of the latest multiplayer map for Halo 3. Entitled Cold Storage, the map is a revamp of a classic Halo map, and will cost avid fraggers nothing whatsoever. To celebrate "Bungie Day", which I didn't realise was an official holiday, the map is being released for free and shall remain free for the foreseeable future. As well as the map, Halo 3 gamerpics and a theme will be free, but only on that day, so don't get them the day after because you'll be stupid.
Also, as per usual with the release of some new DLC, the price of the previous, Legendary, map pack will drop from 800 to 600 points, which is nice if you haven't got it yet.
Details are slithering their way onto the interwebs about Harmonix follow up to to the rather splendid Rock Band. Much to the surprise of no one, the game will continue with the same rhythm action on a plastic instrument style that's made Harmonix a household name. Well, in my house at least, although I don't think we're exactly representative of households internationally. There'll obviously be spit and polish, but don't expect a reinvention of the gazillion pound making wheel.
Also unsurprisingly, instruments purchased for Rock Band the first will still work with Rock Band the second, as will DLC, like those songs you forked out for. Fair play to Harmonix then for not shafting our wallets too much, well, too much more anyway. Sadly though, no music creation element this time round. I say sadly, but the slippery slope towards music being replaced by the clack clacking of plastic in front of a TV is one that's edging a little too close in my opinion.
One of the finest brawlers ever made, Soul Calibur, is now available for download from the Xbox Live Arcade. For the miserly sum of just 800 points, you can now play the game that cost me most of my teenage years. Even now the visuals stand up, proving almost conclusively that the Dreamcast is indeed the greatest console ever made.
Insane personal bias aside, Soul Calibur is a brilliant game, and certainly worth 800 points, however much that is. Or you could just dust off the DC. If you ever bought one. And if not, shame on you.
