Lego Marvel Super Heroes Box Art: Heroes for Sale (Soon Enough)!

Posted on July 11, 2013 by geelw

Thank you, WB Games and TT Games! So, now you kids know exactly what to bug the parents about and you adults who know you’re buying this for yourselves (raises hand) have something to copy and stick to your wall and moon over while you’re waiting for the game to hit retail this fall. It’s going to be on every console (except the Wii) and handheld (except the Nintendo DS), so it’ll be really hard to avoid.

How hard? Well, dear reader, if you wait until the release date and throw a boomerang with a cat hanging on for dear life into any game emporium, it’ll most likely come back with a copy of this game (and a very dizzy, pissed off cat). You DID remember to stick some money in the cat’s mouth or at least wrap your wallet around it, I hope. That game won’t be free, you know…

Scribblenauts Unmasked Will Keep Your Superman Fix Going Into the Fall…

Posted on July 9, 2013 by geelw

Yeah, Warner Bros. Interactive and 5th Cell have got your Superman right here. Pick one from that list above and you’d best believe he’s going to be in action in the upcoming Scribblenauts Unmasked – A DC Comics Adventure,set to launch itself onto Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and PC in September.

To the press release, Robin! (Hey, Batman is in the game too, so I’m just representin’ here!):

Scribblenauts Unmasked – A DC Comics Adventure is a new game that melds the boundless creativity of the award-winning video game franchise with thousands of DC Comics characters and objects across DC Comics worlds – all drawn in the classic Scribblenauts art style.

The game features a story where players embark as protagonist Maxwell on an imaginative and comical quest, taking them through Gotham City, Metropolis, Atlantis and other iconic locales from the DC Comics universe. Fueled by the player’s imagination, Maxwell must use his magic notebook to put a stop to the villains’ evil schemes and save the day! Scribblenauts Unmasked – A DC Comics Adventure will be available on Sept. 24, 2013 for Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and PC.

BEYOND Two Souls – The Origins: Well-Told Tales Come From Many Sources…

Posted on July 9, 2013 by geelw

Once again, David Cage shows why he’s one of the best and most important game creators working today. Turning a personal tragedy inside out and creating a wholly unique game experience loosely based on it with the dev team at Quantic Dream is going to send PlayStation 3 owners into stores by the millions to buy and play BEYOND: Two Souls when it hits retail and PSN on October 18, 2013. As with Heavy Rain, expect gameplay innovation and impressive visuals (quite possibly the best looking game on the PS3 this late in its life cycle) to go with that story you’ll be playing through.

And hey, look! It’s a way too brief PlayStation 4 Killzone: Shadow Fall teaser just because I can pull this stuff off and get away with it…

Grand Theft Auto V Gameplay Trailer: Fall’s Officially A Bust For Productivity In America…

Posted on July 9, 2013 by geelw

It’s always amazing for me to see how Rockstar continues to push the envelope with each new GTA game and Grand Theft Auto V is no exception. September 17 will be a REALLY awful day for productivity across the US and a few other spots this game shows up in, so expect to not see or hear from a lot of folks you probably think aren’t gamers who suddenly disappear for a few days only to pop up for air looking tired as hell but smiling a bit too broadly. For you non-gaming readers, just watch the trailer and let that narrator guide you through why this new GTA is so impressive and important. I don’t play online, but that ending made me grin a bit more at what’s coming in the next trailer. It’s too bad all those time machine plans I see for sale online are trash, or I’d be putting one of those things together just to keep winding time backwards in order to complete the game in a day. As it is now, I’m gathering I’ll be spending a few hundred hours exploring every nook and cranny outside the story mode (as that’s where the game’s bigger secrets will most likely lie)…

Earth Defense Force 4 Gameplay Videos: Bigger, Better, Faster, MORE.

Posted on July 6, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, GameEmpireHD!)

My own copy of the game is in transit from Play-Asia, but there are some folks who picked up the game in Japan and are posting videos galore to show off some of the new features and the updated visuals. Here are a few from Game Empire HD that range from short to medium lengths and show a few of the classes in action. I’m a bit more methodical in how I play an EDF game, so seeing all those pickups left lying around at the end of those stages is a bit distressing. Then again, I’m gathering the person playing is trying to blast through the game as quickly as possible just to get as many videos up as possible.

That said, I did notice all of the videos posted so far are played on Normal mode. Personally, I always blaze through Easy first when playing an EDF game just to get it out of the way, earn a bunch of armor and new weapons plus whatever bonus is gained for completing the game on that difficulty level. That and it’s the best way to see what’s coming on the harder difficulties without struggling with too much dropped on my head at once. OK, I think I have about a week or so to wait, so let the countdown commence…

Review: Spelunker (Virtual Console)

Posted on July 6, 2013 by geelw

Platform: Nintendo Wii U (also on Wii, 3DS)

Developer: Tozai Games

Publisher: Tozai Games

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Official Site

Score: A- (90%)

Still going strong after 30 years, Spelunker is one of those great games that gets a lot of love and hate for what it puts you through. On one hand, it’s a challenging game packed with treasures to grab and a satisfying sense of accomplishment each time you clear a level. On the other hand, it’s a REALLY and infuriatingly challenging game thanks to “the weakest action hero in the history of gaming”, and yes, that’s a selling point of this gem, folks. If you’re no fan of trial and error, the combination of this terminally frail dude, the need for pinpoint control and collecting air supplies scattered around the levels while avoiding death from everything from a VERY short fall to the small assortment of enemies will have you screaming at your TV within seconds…
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Earth Defense Force 4 Launch TV Spots: July 4 is Business As Usual in Japan…

Posted on July 4, 2013 by geelw

Today’s the big day for some gamers in Japan as Earth Defense Force 4 is out and getting furiously played by many. Those of us who’ve imported copies will be waiting patiently around their mailboxes like vultures for our copies to show up and it’ll be hiding away from the sun for a bit as we plow through the game and see what developer Sandlot has done with the series in the five or so years since they last worked on a home console EDF game.

From some poking around on GameFaqs, a few users who live in Japan and have the game are loving the changes so far (a good sign) and combined with the positive Famitsu scores (a 34/40 average), this one looks like a keeper.

Of course, when the game hits US shores next year, you WON’T be seeing these wacky Japanese ads for it at all, so I’m doing my civic duty as an EDF patriot and running them here.

I don’t know what D3Publisher of America’s ad plans are, as they generally don’t run a ton of ads for their games anyway, but it would be nice to see some sort of equally oddball campaign here that’s inexpensive yet equally amusing and effective.

Impressions of the import to come in a bit – I’m going to go get my vulture outfit out of storage and go hang out downstairs…

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – The Epic Making of an Epic (Part One)

Posted on July 3, 2013 by geelw

With all that live action location footage and sweeping camera shots on display in this video plus the promises from the team that this game will be their best yet, it’s impossible not to get a little excited about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as development continues on the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. I know I want the game to be the best new RPG on any platform once it’s released, so I’d like to very emphatically suggest that CD Projekt RED keep Senior Writer Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz away from high cliff edges and live wolves, as I actually jumped a little when he was walking too close to a potential nasty fall in one shot and later, probably could have lost some fingers if that wolf he was stroking decided it wanted a finger sandwich during that part of the clip.

Then again, that shot was edited, so it may have been the wolf handler’s hand in one part and Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz’s in the other. or maybe the man has more talents than writing? I guess I’ll have to wait and see if he’s written himself into the game as a character, right? And I’d imagine if he did, that character would have a shorter last name, as twenty spaces is a lot of screen real estate to fill!

Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut Gets Cool PlayStation Home Content

Posted on July 3, 2013 by geelw

Rising Star Games has been keeping the Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut flame alive first with some nice DLC updates from the game’s developer and now, through this set of Home avatar extras, a Raincoat Killer outfit (I like Red Seeds Killer better, but when in Rome…) complete with axe and *woof!* a dog companion named Willie.

These goodies are now available for purchase NOW (along with the other cool virtual items in that video below:

Oh, You Kids! GTA V on the Xbox 360 Requires An Installation/Play Disc Swap. Oh, The Horror!

Posted on July 3, 2013 by geelw

Yes, there’s another (not really) big-deal barn-burner on some internet boards about the Xbox 360 version of Rockstar’s upcoming guaranteed blockbuster Grand Theft Auto V coming on two discs (the PS3 version is on one Blu-Ray) and requiring a mandatory 8GB install (just like the PS3 version). Of course, anyone who’s played a retail PC game anytime in the past decade or so is used to games coming on multiple discs and yes, there have been a few Xbox 360 games this generation that had separate data install and play discs. So, I’m clearly not seeing the problem here about a ONE TIME disc change. Of course, if you got conned into buying that lower priced 360 with the measly 4GB HDD and you’ve not yet gotten around to buying an external drive yet, you may want to hop to that before the game ships out. Go on now, shoo!

Oh, by the way: don’t get mad at Sony for thinking ahead on the Blu-Ray thing at all. Blame Microsoft for diving into HD-DVD feet first and then ditching the format (even for games!) when it failed to catch on with anyone but early adopters and those who weren’t going to buy a PS3 or other new movie player because they had no intentions of re-purchasing chunks of their collections. Oh, by the way… that game in the photos that’s NOT looking like GTA V? That’s PHANTASM for the Japanese Sega Saturn. It’s a port of the 1995 Sierra On-Line PC game Phantasmagoria and as you can see,came on EIGHT discs (one more than the PC version). You can get it on gog.com (it’s on sale for half price for the next day or so!) if you’d like to try it out. It’s flawed, but well made and a bit creepy where it counts. Anyway,let me get my grumpy old ass back into the 21st century before my lumbago pills wear off…