General gaming

General gaming

Hitman: Absolution Looks Like a Good Stealth-Action Game, But is it a Hitman Game?

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:10 AM PST

Some things that leap out at me during a recent demonstration of Hitman: Absolution where series protagonist Agent 47 has to find someone hidden inside a Chicago orphanage before an extremely unsavory band of hired thugs (at some point, I see one looting the corpse of a nun) do the same:

  • Agent 47 has "Instinct" -- meaning he can toggle a vision mode that lets him temporarily see through walls and illuminate a track on the floor that indicates where enemies patrol.
  • At one point, Agent 47 witnesses some baddies interrogating a captive security guard. He can simply sneak by and progress with his mission. Or, he can intervene and take out the cluster of baddies in the area. Rescuing the guard in this fashion reveals the location of a hidden shotgun.
  • Agent 47 can duck behind cover; recall that Hitman: Blood Money came out before cover systems became A Thing.
  • Thanks to the previous point, Agent 47 can now survive a sustained firefight.

Metal Gear Hands-on: Delays Have Been Kind to Snake Eater 3D, But...

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:41 PM PST

Metal Gear Solid 3 is, to my thinking, one of the finest games ever created. I'm hardly alone in this opinion, so the announcement that the game would be converted to Nintendo 3DS seemed like an amazing coup for the system. How times have changed. Since then, Sony has announced its own new portable system; Konami has announced its intention to port the game to Vita; and Snake Eater 3D demoed at E3 2011 and broke our hearts with its poor quality.

As we near the final release of the game -- pushed back from a tentative fall 2011 release to the middle of next month -- Konami has published a playable demo on the Japanese eShop. This new demo covers much of the same territory as the E3 playable build, yet it goes a long way to soothe our concerns over the conversion's quality. Why no U.S. counterpart yet? Probably because one of the biggest new additions, support for the Circle Pad Pro peripheral, isn't especially practical; the add-on launched in Japan in December but won't be out here until next month.

Playing Resident Evil: Revelations With a Circle Pad Pro Results in a True Portable Resident Evil

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:00 PM PST

If there's one Capcom series that needs a shot in the arm (and doesn't have the words "Mega Man" in the title), it's Resident Evil. Despite overcrowding the survival horror genre with a barrage of titles for almost every platform back in the day, Resident Evil 4 signaled a serious revival of ideas and genuine scares. Yet, somehow, those same ideas appear misplaced in Resident Evil 5, the next big sequel which chose to focus primarily on cooperative play and daytime survival horror.

Either by carefully choreographing two separate adventures into a cohesive whole à la Resident Evil 2, or changing the rules of over-the-shoulder style terrors entirely with RE4, Capcom always finds a way to keep you on edge in a Resident Evil installment. In fact, some of the scariest scenarios of the series happen when you're alone, and to that effect the latest demo for Resident Evil Revelations -- available on the 3DS eShop in Japan only -- starts out on just the right note.

Canabalt Now Available for Commodore 64

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:38 PM PST

Perhaps the king of the auto-running genre, Canabalt really stood out on iOS as a game that was not only fun, but controlled extremely well on the buttonless platform. Before that it existed as a free-to-play Flash game on computers, and now it's been ported once again, only this time, it's available for a platform that debuted 30 years ago.

C64anabalt is a conversion of the indie game for Commodore 64. The port was developed by Paul Koller as an entry in the 2011 RGCD C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition. It's now available for sale publicly, but due to the size restrictions of the ROM -- 16KB just isn't a whole lot by today's standards, or last decade's, for that matter -- there are two versions available. One contains a conversion of the original score by Danny Baranowsky, while the other contains music from indie game ThrustBurst.

Kid Icarus Supports the Circle Pad Pro, But Only for Lefties

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:12 PM PST

Kid Icarus Uprising

You can add Kid Icarus: Uprising to the list of titles that support the upcoming Circle Pad Pro add-on for 3DS. But unlike other games that are using it to provide a better, more console-like control scheme, Nintendo is doing this to make left-handed gamers feel more comfortable.

"The way we are using the Circle Pad Pro in the game is to provide support for left-handed gamers," said the game's director, Masahiro Sakurai, in an interview with Official Nintendo Magazine U.K. "We've made it possible to use the right Circle Pad in place of the left one."

PlayStation 3 Adds Two New College Sports Apps

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:40 PM PST

XOS College Sports

As a part of today's PlayStation Store update, PlayStation 3 owners can now download two new media applications designed for fans of college sports.

The XOS College Sports and SEC Digital Network apps each offer a variety of new and old content that can be streamed right to your PS3. It's the first time either has appeared on a videogame console, and both can be had for free, though much of the content they provide comes at a cost.

XBLA House Party Kicks Off on February 15

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:05 PM PST

I Am Alive

A trailer released this week on the Xbox Live Marketplace revealed Microsoft's plans to showcase a handful of Xbox Live Arcade games in the near future. Microsoft today confirmed some details of the latest XBLA House Party, as well as a similar promotion for Windows Phone.

This year's House Party begins on almost exactly the same date as last year's -- the first game will be out on February 15, followed by the other three games the following three Wednesdays. The games included are Alan Wake's American Nightmare, I Am Alive, Nexuiz, and Warp, as detailed yesterday.

Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater Goes 3D in February

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 11:40 AM PST

Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D

3DS owners will finally be getting their hands on what many consider to be the best Metal Gear game in just over a month from now. Konami today announced Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is set for release on February 21 in North America.

The first sign of a Snake Eater 3DS port came during E3 2010. Later that year it was confirmed for release in 2011, a release window it did not make even in Japan, where it's scheduled to be out in March. After it didn't have the greatest of showings at this past year's E3, we heard the game had been delayed and would not be out until 2012. Konami claimed it had never officially announced a release date and therefore no delay had taken place.

Watch Us Play Classic Games Daily on the Retronauts Lunch Break

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 11:39 AM PST

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Watch Us Play Classic Games Daily on the Retronauts Lunch Break

Check this space every weekday at 12:00pm PST (3:00pm EST) for a dose of retro gaming action!

By: 1UP Staff January 10, 2012

Have some time to kill during your lunch break? Spend it with 1UP, and watch 20 minutes of retro gaming action every weekday at 12:00pm PST (3:00pm EST). Don't forget to follow Retronauts on Twitter so we can field your questions and comments during the livestream! And if you can't watch us live, be sure to check out the archives below.

Up next on the Retronauts Lunch Break: Mega Man 2. Tune in today at 12:00pm PST (3:00pm EST) to watch!

Scribblenauts Dev Launching a New iOS Platformer on Thursday

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 11:02 AM PST

Having recently brought a version of Scribblenauts to iOS, 5th Cell is now readying an all-new game for the platform called Run Roo Run.

The game is an auto-runner -- a game where your character runs automatically and all you do is jump -- much like Canabalt and Robot Unicorn Attack, only with one big difference. Whereas those games allow you to continue to running and jumping for as long as you can avoid death, Run Roo Run is divided into stages, each of which only spans the width of the screen. This is why 5th Cell has taken to calling it a "micro-platformer," as it told Joystiq.

Posted by Shri Krishna

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