GTA 5 To "Steal E3's Thunder"

Video game research analyst Michael Pachter has recently predicted that an early announcement of GTA 5 will steal E3's thunder, it should be noted that Rockstar tends not to have much of a presence at E3 and haven't had an hands-on of a game at the event since the last Midnight Club racing game in 2008.

Pachter said of GTA

"They've outgrown the show. I think they're way too cool to go,  my read on those guys is they like stealing the thunder from everything else.

 So if I had to bet, I'd say you'd get an announcement on GTA 5 the day before E3 starts, that'd be Monday, June 4. They don't show up and all anybody can do is talk about GTA 5 at the show. 

Microsoft To Unveil New Music Service

Microsoft have taken note of the success of music streaming application Spotify as reports are suggesting they are to unveil their own music streaming service at this years E3 Expo. According to The Verve the app will be named Woodstock and will replace the Zune music service that is currently on the Xbox, the app will have strong ties to Facebook in much the same way the Spotify has now, so expect shared playlists and shared tracks from all your Facebook friends.

There are currently no specific details on the price structure for this surface but it has been suggested that existing Zune pass members will be able to keep their subscription with the new service.

Crysis 3 Trailer

Brand new Crysis 3 trailer 

Halo 4 Release Date

The next instalment in the Halo universe and the first game to be developed solely by 343 Studios has finally got a release date. Halo 4 will be released on November 6 has officially announced by Microsoft. This will be the first game since Halo 3 to feature both Master Chief and Cortana and will follow on their story four years on from the end of the third game.

Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios today addressed the game.

"We are beginning a new saga with Halo 4 and embarking on a journey that will encompass the next decade of Halo games and experiences, millions of fans worldwide have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to step back into the boots of Master Chief, and with Halo 4 leading the charge, we're confident 2012 will be the most successful year in Xbox history"

Game of Thrones RPG Gets Release Date

Game of Thrones the upcoming action RPG based on the immensely popular TV show has finally got a release date. The game is developed by Cyanide and will hit stores in "early June" distributor Koch Media has confirmed. This of course should not be confused with the mediocre Game of Thrones Genesis. 

The game itself will feature characters and locations from the TV series and aims to be an authentic Game of Thrones experience. You will start the game as either Mors or Alester and began levelling up your character in true RPG style. It has also been reported that author of the  books, which the TV series is based on, has had "creative input" on this game, so expect a story that reflects the calibre of the TV series.

Demon Souls Offline

Demon's Souls the unofficial prequel to Dark Souls is having its servers shut down in North America on 31st May 2012. Although not as popular at retail as the newer Dark Souls it is understood that a large chunk of the success Dark Souls enjoyed is through some of the revelutional steps regarding difficulty that Demon's Souls took.

The games publisher vice president Tim Pivnicny had this to say on the server closure

"Regrettably, the online servers cannot be sustained forever and now the end draws near, thank you to the unparalleled passion and support of the Demon’s Souls community throughout these last two and a half years. The online adventure may end soon, but the memory of it–just like that of every boss strategy, every level floor plan, and hidden secret–lives on in the gamers for whom the game was so special."

It should be noted that although Dark Souls has come out since the original title there is still very much a cult following for the first game that will be saddened by this news.

Sony To Focus On Gaming

Top Sony staff have recently had discussions about how to overturn their massive losses from the last financial year, which are rumoured to be in the region of $6.4 billion and have caused over 10,000 Sony employees to lose their jobs. Although these massive losses are not primarily caused by the gaming side of the company but instead by sales of other devices such as TVs the fact the PS Vita weekly sales have dropped below 10,000 units in Japan are thought to be the reason Sony have taken notice of the problems facing their gaming business. Sony have therefore decided to focus more of their attention on their gaming platforms in the hope that the gaming side of their company can lead the company out of the red.

In a plan called "One Sony" Sony have outlined a series of ideas that will help the PS3 and Vita  become more successful in their ongoing battle with Microsoft with an overall aim of recouping some of the losses the other legs of their business have experienced. Although it is not fully clear what this will mean for Sony it can be strongly assumed that more capital will be put into development which is good news for any fans looking forward to a potential PlayStation 4

Max Payne Achievement List Announced

Rockstar has revealed the full trophy and achievement list for their upcoming Max Payne game that launches May 15 in Northern America and May 18 in Europe, excluding the secret ones.

Below are the list of official achievements

·         Feel the Payne
Story Complete [MEDIUM]

·         Serious Payne
Story Complete [HARD]

·         Maximum Payne
Story Complete [OLD SCHOOL]

·         Payne In The Ass
Story Complete [HARDCORE]

·         It's Fear That Gives Men Wings
10 Bullet Time Kills In A Row

·         You Could Hurt Somebody With That
Shoot 10 Airborne Grenades

·         You Sure Know How To Pick A Place
Discover All Tourist Locations

·         The Fear Of Losing It
Survive A Level Without Painkillers

·         One Bullet At A Time
300 Headshots

·         You Play, You Pay, You Bastard
         100 Kills With Melee

·         With Practiced Bravado
100 Kills During Shootdodge

·         Past The Point Of No Return
Take 100 Painkillers

·         A Few Hundred Bullets Back
Use Every Weapon In The Game

·         Colder Than The Devil's Heart
Kill 30 Enemies In 2 Minutes

·         Part I Complete
Complete Part I Of The Story

·         Part II Complete
Complete Part II Of The Story

·         Part III Complete
Complete Part III Of The Story

·         Out The Window
Get 6 Kills While Diving Through The VIP Window [FREE AIM]

·         The One Eyed Man Is King
Cover Passos With Perfect Aim

·         That Old Familiar Feeling
Clear The Hallway Of Lasers

·         Something Wicked This Way Comes
Get 7 Kills While Jumping From The Rickety Boat [FREE AIM]

·         Amidst The Wreckage
Destroy All The Models In The Boardroom

·         So Much For Being Subtle
Get 9 Kills While Being Pulled By A Chain [FREE AIM]

·         The Shadows Rushed Me
Unlock And Complete New York Minute Hardcore

·         The Only Choice Given
Get 8 Kills While Dangling From A Chain [FREE AIM]

·         Along For The Ride
Trigger A Bullet Cam On The Zipline [FREE AIM]

·         Sometimes You Get Lucky
Get A Headshot During The Rooftop Tremors

·         It Was Chaos And Luck
Get 6 Kills While Riding The Push Cart [FREE AIM]

·         The Road-Kill Behind Me
Total Everything On The Runway

·         Trouble Had Come To Me
Clear Everyone On The Bus Ride

·         All Of The Above
Finish All Grinds

·         An Echo Of The Past
Find All Clues

·         A License To Kill
Collect All Golden Guns

·         A New York Minute
Finish In A New York Minute

·         Full Monty
Complete One Of Each Game Mode Including All Gang Wars

·         Payne Bringer
Kill 100 Other Players

·         Max Payne Invitational
You Invited Someone To Play

·         Man Of Many Weapons
Unlock All Weapons

·         Man Of Many Faces
Unlock All Faction Characters

·         Deathmatch Challenge
Winner In Any Deathmatch

·         Grave Robber
Looted A Body

·         The Gambler
Won A Wager

·         Training Complete
Achieve Level Rank 50

·         Dearest Of All My Friends
Kill Someone On Your Friends List

New Resident Evil 6 Launch Date Revealed

It has been announced at Capcom's annual Captivate showcase that Resident Evil 6 is to change its launch date from the one  intially billed ( November 6) to a new revised date of October 2, which suggests this game will have a worldwide release. 

Executive producer Hiroyuki Kobaayashi said the date change was due to the positive reaction to the reveal trailer in January.

"The enthusiastic reception for the trailer made Capcom want to get the game into players' hands earlier"

 It should be noted that many games considered the biggest of this year (Bioshock Infinite, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, etc.) all are likely to release around this time.

 

Anomaly: Warzone Earth – Review – Xbox 360 (XBLA)

Anomaly: Warzone Earth is an upcoming real time strategy game on XBLA developed by 11 bit studios, the game is an updated version of the one by the same name already released on the iOS and PC  but features a brand new set of levels called "Tactical Trials" . The game will hit XBLA on April 6 for 800 MSP but can this strategy game stand out among a highly dense genre? well if the tag line "reverse tower defence" or "tower offence" is anything to go by then maybe it has a chance.

Anomaly Warzone Earth sets you up in the not too distant future where an alien spacecraft has crash landed on earth and splintered into different location, and in order to investigate this crash landing you will be going to major cities around the world, which interestingly includes Baghdad, which itself adds to the initial excitement of the game along with Tokyo which offers a certain grab to the audience. The spacecrafts have gone on to set up force fields around these cities, and that is where you come in, you will be heading into these cities as head of "14th platoon" with a mission objective to investigate the crash sites whilst neutralising any threats and preventing any more destruction on Earth. To do this you will have control of a convoy and will be aiming to get your convoy and commander as close to the aliens as possible.

The first thing that will grab your attention in this game is the whole idea and concept of "tower offence" and more importantly its application, the most fundamental and basic application of this concept is the sense that you don't wait for the attackers to come to you like in traditional tower defence games but instead you are the attacks that are going to them. This is a very clever way of appearing to be unique but in all reality this game uses all the mechanics of a tower defence game but tweaks the focus of these mechanics slightly, which in itself is not a bad thing but its easy to see through this unique element that is being promoted along with this game, this is of course not to say this game inst highly unique because it is, but this aspect is easy to see through.

The game play in this game is very satisfying, it does all the basics that a tower defence (or offence) game should do, you know these features by now so I'll not bore you with them, I will instead talk about a unique aspect of the game play, and in a genre so dense with quality titles this is a very important area this game needs to get right and excel.  You will notice when you are (slowly) moving your convoy through all the highly populated enemy strung areas that your unit as it were is lead by a commander, these handy, yet small men add to the flow of the game with some of the talents that they have and abilities they possess, most prominently and most appealingly the ability to turn your convey invisible for a short amount of time and the ability of laying down a smokescreen (the effects you can see in the image below). In the games quest to stand out from the overpopulated crowd the combat is a shining light, but it is not alone, the way you manoeuvre towards your objective is very impressive and you can see the thought process that went into it, because you don't directly control your convey you have to set a destination, of which is your choosing, this typically means that you will have to think about what you are going to do as acting purely on impulse won't get you far, you have to think which way is the quickest, which way has the least enemies and so on. Coupling the before mentioned aspects with the power ups your convoy will need succeeds in adding a unique but highly fun element to the game play and combat.

In every game I ever play I always look at the graphics and art style for inspiration and visual representations of the story the game is trying to tell and this is no different. When dealing with aliens and spacecrafts I feel there are three ways to go visually, you can follow the style set in the film Alien where darkness and shadow is used to portray the aliens, you can follow the example set by the Halo series which focuses on very bright colours and incorporates a comedy element or you can go for the more futuristic advanced style e.g War of the Worlds. This game definitely takes a certain amount of inspiration from the Halo series in the colour palette used, the colours are all very bright and appealing, especially the glow from around your units and the enemy units, couple this with the bright colours coming from the various attack beams and you have a very diverse colour range which in cooperation with the well designed and colourful battlegrounds helps to create a very nice art style.

So often in regards to real time strategy games especially tower defence pace is a problem, and as I hinted at earlier that is no different in this game too, although I will admit the pace of the game is not entirely detrimental to the games experience it is a slight issue that bothered me, the speed in which your convoy moves could be a little quicker. It can be argued that the slowness is to give less experienced players of the genre some time to adjust and work out what needs to be done, which is fine but I do feel a little bit of the tension is lost by doing this.

Many of the problems that this game has often boil down to petty annoyances which can only be a good thing in the sense that it has no crippling flaws but these small problems are still enough to dent your experience slightly, for example the dialogue is instantly forgettable and highly stereotypical and often centres on tough guy army types babbling on with what seems like a cut and paste script, but as I said before these are not big issues in the grand scheme of things.
"Many of the problems that this game has often boil down to petty annoyances"

In a genre crammed full with real time strategy games and more specifically tower defense games it is hard to create something that is both unique, fun and challenging all at the same time but this game managers to do it, at most times it is a joy to be playing the game, and there is enough in the game regarding complexity to keep up a good level of challenge but the game never forgets that it needs to be fun as well. Anomaly: Warzone Earth strives to be unique and despite the cringe worthy tag line it succeeds in most parts and is a genuinely enjoyable XBLA title.

Pros

• Unique feel to the game
• Visual pleasing art style
• Fun yet challenging game play

Cons

• Slight pace issue
• Poor dialogue
• Cringe worthy tag line

Score: 8 out of 10 

A copy of this game was provided by the developer for review purposes.

New Xbox 720 features

Recently there have been reports of several new features for the new Xbox "720", as ever these are just rumours but you should bare these in mind come 2013 or whenever Microsoft's releases their new console.

GPU 
According to multiple sources the next Xbox will have two GPU's, which will be equivalent to AMD 7000 series GPU's, along with this there will be four to six CPU cores, one of which will be dedicated to the Kinect.

New Name
The new Xbox has been dubbed "720" for quite a long time now in the media just based on the name of the current console the "360" but what will the name actually be? although nothing solid has been said about the name of the new console there have been two codenames leaked recently, one of which is "Loop" and the other "Durango"

Disc Drive
There have been conflicting reports and rumours on this issue recently, the initial belief was that the new Xbox was to start using a Blu-ray drive, which although not as fast as DVD's which Microsoft currently use can store significantly more data. The other report that has surfaced recently is that the new Xbox wont have a disc drive at all and will instead opt for a digital download only system.

Next Xbox Games In Development 
There is such a large amount of information and reports on the web that developers have got the new Xbox dev kits that although they deny it we can take it as "almost" fact, but what this does mean if indeed it is true is that the launch games for the new consoles should be of the highest quality, in an age where developers are more talented than ever I suspect games for the "720" will be better than ever.

These are just some of the most valid rumours out there of the new Xbox, you can find more but these are the most likely to be true.

New Witcher 2 Trailer

Epic new The Witcher 2 trailer detailing the enhanced edition coming to Xbox 360 April 17 2012, watch out for this game of the year contender

South Park: Tenorman's Revenge - Review - XBOX 360 (XBLA)

South Park Tenorman's Revenge is the latest in a long line of South Park tie-ins to hit consoles, but is this one any good? The game is developed by Other Ocean Interactive of Super Monkey Ball (iPhone) and Castlevania (XBLA) fame and was developed with full backing from show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker which results in the game having the authentic edge of real characters and locations from the game, not forgetting the infamous artstyle. The objective of the game is to chase Cartman's antagonist from the TV show Scott Tenorman through time to retrieve an Xbox hard drive that Scott has stolen from Eric, from here out you will began a platforming journey through time with your three best friends Stan, Kyle and Kenny.

To start with the positives the Game echoes the comedy and ethos that runs so thick in the TV show, the shows humour has not been watered down at all and is just as offensive has the show, to justify this claim you only have to look at the objective of the game, which is to travel through time hunting down Scott Tenorman who has stolen Cartman's Xbox hard drive, if that's not enough you will find out that the main enemies in the game are robot ginger kids. The comedy and authenticity are the two best features about this game and will appeal to the fans of the show.

The visual style is impressive

There is a lot of fan service in this game, with references from the show littered throughout much of the game, if your a fan of the show this could enhance your experience but if not act as a major irritant, this game does though deserve some credit for presentation, the game looks visually pleasing, the menus are well designed as are the cut scenes and there are clear signs that the game was developed with the shows creators on board. The game itself also doesn't drop the ball visually, the characters look exactly like they do on your TV screens and at times you feel as if your are playing an interactive episode of South Park which helps you become immersed in the game.

The problem with the majority of tie-ins is that they can't mirror what the original product does well in the actually game play and I'm afraid this is no different, the game can mirror the comedy and the look of of the TV show but the actually game play is nothing more than a run of the mill platform game, and not a good one at that. The movements of the characters are sluggish and the jumping mechanic is unpredictable which really damages the credibility of any platformer. The way you attack your various enemies leaves a lot to be desired, because of the slow moving characters the attacking variations are bland and unimaginative, you spend most of your time jumping on the heads of enemies Mario style or firing various projectile weapons. Another game play element that lets this game down is the camera angle, for some of the game it is fine but when you play coop and all four of you go in separate directions the camera pulls out which results in visibility being minimised and the game just becomes a mess of jumping characters and collectibles, along with this the camera will struggle to keep up with you at times which results in many leap of faiths often resulting in death, and after multiple examples of this it starts to get very frustrating.

The camera angle is poor

Although I said that the game remains true to the TV series is most ways it doesn't in one crucial way and that is the diversity in the playable characters, the show is build on the diversity between Stan, Kyle, Eric and Kenny but in the game this aspect suffers, yes they each have their own special powers which may seem impressive but in practise they are disappointing. I would find it hard to recommend this game to anyone, if you scratch beneath the surface of this South Park tie-in all you get is a mediocre platformer with little imagination in the way of game play, poor game play mechanics and a poor camera angle.  If you’re a die-hard fan of the show you will get some enjoyment out of the authenticity but I would suggest waiting for Obsidian's version on a South Park gaming coming out later this year

Pros

•  Authentic voice acting and characters
• Visual pleasing and imaginative graphics
• Four player coop

Cons

• Sluggish control
• Poor gameplay mechanics
• Terrible camera angle

Score 4 out of 10 

A copy of this game was provided by the developer for review purposes.

Game Group Saved

According to the Telegraph a deal has been completed for OpCapita to take over Game in the UK, with the price they have paid rumoured to be £1, although the real financial cost for OpCapita is Games £85m debt.

This is good news for the 3,200 or so employees still working in Games remaining 333 stores across the UK and Ireland as their jobs are now relatively safe, at least for the time being.

Opcapita's managing partner said of the takeover

" We are pleased to have reached agreement with the administrator, We strongly believe there is a place on the high street for a video gaming specialist and GAME is the leading brand in a £2.8bn market in the UK"

Ian Shepard former chief executive of Game spoke out about his disappointment of the position Game now finds themselves in and claims he, along with the rest of management did all they could.

"I have fought, and all of the management team here have fought with every ounce of energy to avoid arriving at this point"

It should be noted however that Games oversees assets are still up for sale