General gaming

General gaming

Call of Duty XP Convention to Unveil Modern Warfare 3's Multiplayer

Posted: 30 Jun 2011 03:00 AM PDT

Call of Duty XP 2011

We have QuakeCon, BlizzCon, and now we have what amounts to Call of Duty Con. Activision has announced the very first ever Call of Duty XP, a two-day event being held in September where more than 6,000 fans will be able to celebrate Activision's first-person shooter series.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer mode will make its world premiere at the event, as will the full slate of Call of Duty Elite functionality. Activision has been unwilling to share everything Elite will offer because it's so closely tied in with MW3's multiplayer. Elite will be shown off prior to XP to some extent as a beta is set to go live on July 14.

Attendees will be able to try out both the new multiplayer and Spec Ops modes for themselves as well as compete in a $1 million tournament (qualifying will take place in Black Ops prior to the event, with select qualifications taking place at the event itself), and check out real-life recreations of several Modern Warfare 2 levels/areas including Burger Town (which will serve lunch), The Pit (where you can try to set a top time on a real-life course), and Scrapyard (home to paintball tournaments). There will also be developer panels, "AAA" live entertainment, a Call of Duty armory and museum, and more.

Some Big News for 1UP

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 07:30 PM PDT

Hey guys, I just want to fill you in on some changes we've been making on this end. As you probably remember, 1UP was acquired by IGN about two months ago, which was a big deal for us in that we could finally be part of a company that really gets both games and the internet (IGN's been doing this since the mid to late '90s). Having struggled through years of ownership sadly void of resources and imagination, it was often incredibly challenging for me and the crew. If it weren't for such an amazing community and a fantastic group of passionate, brilliant editors, this place would have been in real danger of closing up shop. But 1UP weathered the storm and has found a great new home in IGN.

Anyway, since then, we've moved 1UP's sites from a hosting facility in Massachusetts to IGN's server farm in Las Vegas (and despite a few expected hiccups, everything is functioning better than ever). We've also moved our offices down the street to IGN's building, allowing us to join some friends, be reunited with some former coworkers, and give me just a stupid awesome commute.

Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, Last Story Still Not Planned for U.S. Release

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 07:20 PM PDT

The Last Story

A fan campaign has been doing its best to convince Nintendo to bring several Japanese Wii games to North America. After a period of silence, the company has delivered its answer and it's not what we were hoping to hear.

The movement began a week ago on IGN's message boards and has become known as Operation Rainfall. The games in question are Pandora's Tower, The Last Story, and Xenoblade Chronicles. All three have already been released in Japan but there's been no indication of if or when they would be headed to North America. Fans were understandably upset when there was no sign of the trio at E3 (Janine specifically asked!).

Rainfall was initially going to consist of a letter-writing campaign. It has since done much more than that, flooding Nintendo with requests on both Facebook and Twitter. More astounding was what it managed to do on Amazon. The site still has a listing for Monado: Beginning of the World, an older title for Xenoblade that was never updated. Although it has no release date and a $59.99 price attached, Rainfall was able to push it all the way to the top of the sales charts by placing pre-orders on it. For a period of time this past weekend, it was the best-selling item in Amazon's videogame section, beating out the likes of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and the Call of Duty: Black Ops PS3 bundle. Prior to this, the game hadn't even been in the top 100.

Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Review

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:30 PM PDT

When the original Half-Minute Hero hit the PSP in the fall of 2009, it seemed like the perfect fit for the Japanese RPG-heavy system. But at the same time, its exclusivity to Sony's handheld damned Half-Minute Hero to a limited audience, and at a full retail price that inevitably caused many to shy away from its openly-advertised lack of length. Now that Marvelous' little experiment is available for a paltry 800 Microsoft Points, Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax's new price point makes this game a perfect addition to the Xbox Live Arcade library.

If you're wondering about the quality of the game itself, check out 1UP's original 2009 review; Half-Minute Hero is entirely unchanged from its original form, except for one small difference: a (thankfully) optional graphical "upgrade" that does its best to destroy the charm of the original game. I guess this new look could work for those opposed to the lovingly crafted sprites of the original PSP game, but if you loathe the blocky, old-school graphics of Half-Minute Hero, you're kind of missing the point -- and if you enjoy the poorly made Wind Waker-lite aesthetic upgrade, I'd like to have a few words with you. Thankfully, the original look has been preserved (via a quick option change on the main menu), and looks shockingly great on an HDTV -- as long as you're comfortable with a world bereft of anti-aliasing.

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D Review

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:25 PM PDT

To paraphrase the T.V. show Mystery Science Theater 3000, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D isn't really a game -- it's more of a game loaf, made from real game parts, chunked and formed. The "parts" in this case come from The Mercenaries, an extra mode found in Resident Evils 4 and 5, made to act as a pleasant diversion from the main attraction -- not a stand-alone experience. And therein lies the problem: It takes a lot of effort on the developer's part to justify selling a formerly free novelty as a $40 boxed product (also, let's not forget that RE4 and 5 can be now found for $10-and-less across many platforms). Unfortunately, Capcom didn't invest the necessary manpower in their attempt to translate this popular franchise to the newest generation of handhelds, resulting in a cynical and hateful product that's essentially Buyer's Remorse: The Game.

If you're not familiar with The Mercenaries, it's basically an arcadey version of the fast-paced horror-combat pioneered in Resident Evil 4. You choose from one of the series' many popular characters (with optional goofy costumes), enter a stage recycled from the main game, and try to stay alive as long as possible while collecting time bonuses and racking up points through a combo-based system. Performing well earns you higher grades, which unlock new characters and other goodies. The Mercenaries 3D keeps the trappings of this six year-old mini-game intact, but also throws in a few extra odds and ends engineered to drag an inherently shallow experience hours and hours beyond its expiration date.

How to Survive the Fallout Apocalypse

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:55 PM PDT

Feature

Header

How to Survive the Fallout Apocalypse

Reality Check: How real are your walks through the wastes?

By: Steve Watts June 30, 2011

The Fallout series is a gritty and darkly humorous set of tales about a world gone wrong. We've taken several treks through the massive wastelands, meeting interesting characters and forging our own legends. But would the world even be livable after such a widespread attack, and would humanity really be able to work together and trust each other after such devastation? To find out, we talked to two experts in their fields: Dr. Curtis Miyamoto, chairperson of the radiation oncology department at Temple University School of Medicine; and Dr. Karen Cerulo, chair of the sociology department at Rutgers University.

In very general terms, Dr. Miyamoto says the world would be livable. "Most of the isotopes would be gone and the half-life would have expired, so they would be safe," Miyamoto told 1UP. Most major fallout products have relatively a short half-life as compared to the dozens of years before vault-dwellers explore the wastes.

Minecraft Model Will be Used for Mojang's Next Game

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:45 PM PDT


Minecraft is much different from your average game -- it's essentially a sandbox world where you can create anything you want, and there have been some amazing things created from a Zelda adventure to a recreation of a Chrono Trigger area to A Link to the Past's world to Pokemon's Kanto to enormous holes to Earth... you get the idea. Its business model, too, is unusual; it was developed briefly and then released to the public long before it was finished. It began being sold while it was still in alpha and remains in beta as of today -- it won't be "officially" be released until this November, more than two years after it first became available.

Developer Mojang's next game, Scrolls, differs from Minecraft both in theme (it's a card/board game hybrid) and in that it's being developed by five people, not almost entirely by one. The way it'll be rolled out to the public, however, will be very similar.

"With our new game, Scrolls, we'll follow the same formula as Minecraft," Mojang's Daniel Kaplan told Gamasutra at Gamelab 2011. "That means we'll release the game very early," as soon as it's playable in some capacity.

I Am Alive Assigned a Rating in Australia

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:39 PM PDT


Since being announced in 2008, I Am Alive's release has slipped further and further back, and it's now been quite a while since we've officially heard about the game. It appears to finally be inching its way towards a release that might not be so terribly far off -- the Australian classification board assigned it a "Mature 15+" rating yesterday, though the listing offers up no release date or any new information.

Its author is listed only as "Ubisoft." After being worked on by Darkworks (which announced its new game last week), development was shifted to Ubisoft Shanghai in 2009. Since then, the game was to receive a reboot. Earlier this month, it was confirmed to still be in development.

Being assigned a rating is a promising sign that I Am Alive is not, well, dead. Following the debut trailer, the only subsequent thing for fans to check out is the new trailer above which showed up prior to last year's E3. The only new development since then was a declaration by Ubisoft that it would be out no sooner than April 2011.

Call of Duty's "Competitive Edge" is 60 Frames Per Second

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 02:55 PM PDT

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

There's been a bit of mud slinging between the respective sides for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. While the latter has been praised for its impressive visuals and the Frostbite 2 engine, Sledgehammer Games co-founder Glen Schofield is adamant that MW3's ability to run at 60 frames per second should not be understated.

In an interview with AusGamers at E3, Schofield was asked if the engine that continues to be used to power the Call of Duty series will ever be dropped of favor of something entirely new. He said, "I don't really know. I mean we really revamped this engine. We put a whole new audio system in and it is as competitive as anybody out there. You can go out and name your engine and call it whatever you want, right. You know, I've done that before; I've seen that trick and the bottom line is, this game will run at 60 frames a second. Not sure any of our competitors will.

"Not sure I've seen any of our competitors on the console especially running at 60 frames a second and I'd be a little scared at this point -- in June -- if I was looking forward to a particular game that wasn't on the console and running at 60. And I think 60 is our competitive edge and you just don't throw that away."

Child of Eden Is A Bodily Experience

Posted: 29 Jun 2011 02:37 PM PDT

Child of Eden is without a doubt a unique and intriguing game. With its distinctive integration of music and action, it entices gamers to act rhythmically while also inviting the interest of Rez fans with a somewhat nostalgic experience as the title's spiritual successor.

We asked the 1UP Community how they'd preferred to play this catchy musical shooter and here are the results:

Though the poll shows that most people enjoy Child of Eden by making it a literal bodily experience with the Kinect, an almost equal number of gamers enjoy simply using the controller. Surprisingly though, players opting to use the PlayStation Move lost out to those who merely wished to enjoy themselves by watching.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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