General gaming |
- InFamous 2 Review
- Former Infinity Ward Heads' Activision Lawsuit Likely Headed to Trial
- Xbox 360 Skype Support Now Just a Matter of Time
- Crysis Developer Denies Knowledge of an Xbox 360 Successor
- This Week in the 1UP Community 6/14/11
- Transformers Dark of the Moon Review
- 13 LEGO Games We Want to See
- Call of Duty Elite Announcement Timing Questioned by EA Chief
- Games We Wanted to See at E3 Drawn in MS Paint
- Tomb Raider and the Reinvention of Lara Croft
| Posted: 17 Jun 2011 07:07 PM PDT InFamous 2 is the game where Cole MacGrath finally conquers his greatest obstacle. I'm not talking about The Beast (a titan of ash and fire that literally stomps its way across the Eastern seaboard throughout the course of InFamous 2's plot), nor am I talking about the multitude of mercenaries, militia, and mutants that populate the streets of New Marais. In the same way that Professor X's (of X-Men fame) greatest foe is actually different than the safe assumption of Magneto, Cole's greatest foe turned out to be: chainlink fences. They provided the "I can climb everything except this?" paradox in the first game, and so it's eminently satisfying to press X near a chainlink fence, watch Cole grab onto it, and see the "Don't Fence Me In" Trophy pop up on your screen. The above is a little example of the kinds of tweaks and changes that InFamous 2 brings with it to improve upon InFamous. Developer Sucker Punch, for the most part, has made sure that InFamous 2 still retains many of its predecessor's qualities while tidying up its weaknesses. Not only can Cole climb up chainlink fences, but he can do things like string together melee attacks to rebuild his energy meter; swing in the air via a lightning tether (a la Spider-Man or Nathan Spencer -- pick whether the influence comes from comics or games) to scale vertical spaces much more efficiently; and finally even upgrade his radar/minimap to see where a far-off blast shard is. The D-Pad can be used to quickly cycle through a huge array of powers rapidly (which is useful, since many foes require specific types of attacks to deal with). Heck, your inane sidekick from the previous game, Zeke, is actually less annoying (and part of a somewhat agonizing moment depending on your alignment at the end). And it even rewards me for swinging my Amp (a powered-tuning fork that Cole uses for melee combat) at those annoying street performers who spend their days pretending to be statues. |
| Former Infinity Ward Heads' Activision Lawsuit Likely Headed to Trial Posted: 17 Jun 2011 05:07 PM PDT A California judge allowed Activision's lawsuit to continue in March, and the same happened this week with the lawsuit against Activision. The Hollywood Reporter reports a Los Angeles Superior Court judge made the decision on Tuesday deeming that West and Zampella have "sufficient claims against Activision." This means the case is likely to go to trial at some point, although that probably won't happen for at least several more months. There's also the possibility of a settlement being reached before that can ever happen. West and Zampella's attorney, Robert Schwartz, told USA Today, "That can't be good for Activision. They can't be happy about this." |
| Xbox 360 Skype Support Now Just a Matter of Time Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:31 PM PDT Part of last month's announcement made mention of Skype support for both Xbox and Kinect, along with other Microsoft devices. Now that the company is allowed to make the purchase, it's only a matter of time before Skype is integrated with the Xbox 360's dashboard. Skype support is currently offered on the PlayStation Portable. "Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms," a statement said last month, presumably indicating that PSP support will continue. It's the sensible thing to do, as it would only hurt Microsoft and Skype to start removing supported devices for a service that's currently losing money. |
| Crysis Developer Denies Knowledge of an Xbox 360 Successor Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:06 PM PDT "Relating to the recent rumours, Crytek do not have any next generation hardware from Microsoft, nor do we know when Microsoft may announce future hardware or what that hardware will entail," a statement from the company reads. The source also said Crytek UK (formerly Free Radical Design) was working on a CryEngine 3-powered TimeSplitters 4. That particular point wasn't addressed by Crytek, which instead highlighted what it's already known to be working on. |
| This Week in the 1UP Community 6/14/11 Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:53 PM PDT It's been a crazy week of E3 2011 postmortems and Duke Nukem Forever debates, but let's step away from those topics and see what else has been going on in the community. I'm glad to report that this week has been full of original content in terms of art and musical pieces. Also, 1UP members have written telling blogs analyzing the progression of technology in society and fighting games, including a strategic tell-all about choice Pokemon to use in White/Black. There's much more interesting content to catch up on, so check it out for yourself and read on. |
| Transformers Dark of the Moon Review Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:45 PM PDT Gamers were treated to a decent Transformers video game last summer. Seriously, it was pretty damn fun and entertaining with a deep multiplayer mode as well as offering three player online co-op through the single-player campaign. High Moon Studios, the developer that made Transformers: War for Cybertron (WFC), was again tasked with creating another Transformers game -- this time for the upcoming movie Dark of the Moon. I won't kid you, though: it's not that good of a game, and the results bear the markings of a title rushed through development to coincide with the movie's release. It's a shame too, because beneath the graphics clipping, long load times, lack of features, and lag-filled multiplayer, one could almost see the inklings of another decent Transformers game in the making. They just ran out of time to make it a worthwhile experience. As one could surmise from the title, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is related to the upcoming movie and is designed to chronicle the events that lead up to the film. The game's mash-up of a story never amounts to anything meaningful or groundbreaking, and the single player campaign is pretty short -- clocking in around five hours or less. Additionally, the level design is rudimentary. For most of the game you guide your Transformer down a linear path to a small arena, fight waves of nameless enemies, and then continue down to the next arena -- rinse and repeat. There are a few times in which the game tries to mix this up with instances like a stealth section of a level when playing as Laserbeak, or an air combat level with Starscream, but these are brief and against the norm of the game's overall simplistic design. It's worth noting that there is no online co-op, but seeing how the levels are structured, it's hard to imagine it working well even if it this feature did exist. |
| Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:27 PM PDT
ACTIVITY 13 LEGO Games We Want to SeeLEGO Harry Potter, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean aren't enough! We want more.By Janine Dong, 06/17/2011 Page 1 of 13  Remember we asked the 1UP Community what they'd like to see turned into the next great LEGO game? Well, we had a point in doing that and now we can finally share with you the results. Here are some of the titles 1UP members would like to see get the LEGO treatment.  |
| Call of Duty Elite Announcement Timing Questioned by EA Chief Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:25 PM PDT "I don't know what's in Elite right now," he told Industry Gamers, "but based on what I've seen, I think they might've been better off holding the Elite thing and been a little more careful and show up a month after they've launched Modern Warfare 3. 'Hey, we've got an expansion pack. It's going to be x amount of money, but if you give us y amount of money, you get extra stuff.' As opposed to leading with their chin." Subscribers will get access to all playable downloadable content for free. Map packs will still be sold independently, as they are now, but getting every new map is one perk that's been confirmed for those willing to pay a monthly fee. |
| Games We Wanted to See at E3 Drawn in MS Paint Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:24 PM PDT
Feature Games We Wanted to See at E3 Drawn in MS PaintOur crack artists offer concept renders for E3's MIA games.By: E3 has come and gone, but where was Half-Life 3, Doom 4, or Beyond Good & Evil 2? There were dozens of games that we wanted to see at the show that were conspicuously absent. We know for a fact or have good evidence that all these games are in development right now, and their absence in LA broke our hearts. We've waited long enough -- time to make them ourselves. 1UP commissioned its top artists and most advanced tech to create target renders for our most anticipated games that weren't at E3. 1UP users, submit your own creations in the comments below and you may be included in our next MS Paint gallery! |
| Tomb Raider and the Reinvention of Lara Croft Posted: 17 Jun 2011 01:15 PM PDT This year's E3 stage demos were a particularly excruciating lot. Their wretchedness had nothing to do with the presumed quality of the games themselves, mind you. I mean, Battlefield 3 looks nothing short of excellent, but watching some guy drive a tank in a straight line through the desert for two minutes was quite possibly the most boring thing I've ever been forced to watch at a video game press event. Yet no press conference demo missed the mark quite like the one Microsoft hosted for Tomb Raider, next year's reboot of the series that catapulted heroine Lara Croft to fame. It's not that the demo was technically poor or that the game looked bad; rather, the five minutes Microsoft dedicated to Tomb Raider gave an incredibly poor impression of what the team at Crystal Dynamics is hoping to accomplish with the game. In the course of the Tomb Raider stage demo, Lara Croft was bound, burned, dropped, injured, assaulted, and generally abused by unknown (and seemingly violent) stalkers. Unlike the fearless Lara that most gamers know, she was clearly terrified out of her mind by the situation she found herself in and spent most of the demo trying to soothe her own anxiety by nervously talking to herself. There was no combat in the E3 stage demo for the game. Lara could only struggle desperately to break free of her captors, screaming in fear as filthy-looking men leapt from the shadows to drag her away to an unknown fate. |
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