July 21st -
Limbo: A stylistically innovative black and white platformer that was nominated for awards in both Art and Technical Excellence in the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival.

July 28th -
Hydro Thunder Hurricane: A hidden treasure from Dreamcast’s days of glory, a water based racer guaranteed to remain a fan favorite for years to come.

August 4th -
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: A brand new Castlevania game? Seriously, do I have to say anything else? A six player co-op based platforming-rpg similar to Symphony of Night in both style and difficulty.

August 11th -
Monday Night Combat: A six-on-six third person shooter set in a horrific future where killing is a sport and athletes go head to head on a nightly basis, similar in style to Team Fortress, this arcade title is designed for pure fun.

August 18th -
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: A co-op adventure which is a far cry from previous Tomb Raider titles, we’ll just have to see how it compares in terms of playability.

All of these titles will run you 1200 Microsoft Points, buying all five will get you a 1200 MS point refund, and buying four will get you 400 MS points.

For $15 each, these games are well priced and designed specifically for Summer gaming.

So go get em.

Due to unknown issues EA and DICE decided to delay the Medal of Honor 360 beta, at first it was assumed that it was the folks over at Microsoft who were to blame, but with the latest delay just announced nobody really has any idea what the cause is.

The developer had this to say on the subject,

“As for the Xbox 360 version of the beta, we are delayed and we apologize. To the Xbox 360 community, we say thank you for your continued patience. We are working to fix the issues that have caused this delay and, like you, we’re eager to get the game up and running at quality.”

Supposedly the beta will be extended for 360 users so that everyone has enough time to play before it officially comes out in October.

Unfortunately since we have no idea what the reason is behind the delay we don’t know how long it’s going to take to fix it, this is the kind of thing the folks over at EA seriously need to tell us.

-Dr Strange Lulz

The first thing you’ll notice about the new Xbox 360 is that it is noticeably  shorter and thinner than its predecessor, so you’ll be able to set it up in slightly smaller areas, and with its shiny new finish you’ll want to show this beast off as often as possible.

The new built in 250 gig hard drive is, funnily enough, located at the bottom of the system. Honestly, the fact that the hard drive is built in really has no effect on the system overall, how often do you take your hard drive off anyway.

The system has a port specifically for Kinect, which I suppose is what Microsoft was referring to when they claimed the system was “Ready for Kinect”. They’ve also done a good job of adding more USB ports, there are now a total of five (Two in the front, and three at the back) and with the new ability to store game saves and profile data on USB drives they are a welcome addition.

Aside from slightly shorter load and startup times, the system’s major improvements lie in cooling, sound and wifi. The system is clearly designed to improve airflow and reduce the need for additional cooling units. As for the sound, the system truly is whisper quiet. I have a particularly loud Elite and upon starting the new 360 up for the first time almost cried tears of joy over how quiet it was.

The new Xbox 360 boasts the fastest Wi-fi available on any system to date, 802.11n. While I don’t use Wi-fi, I’ve heard mixed reports regarding the speed on the new system. A few people claimed that the connection was slower while the vast majority say that it’s a drastic improvement.

All I can say is this, the system is beautiful and performs like a  dream. While the changes are nice, they aren’t strictly necessary… so unless you’re a die-hard 360 fan who needs to have the latest and best, the decision to pick up the new system will really be up to you.

Best RPG: Deus Ex Human RevolutionOn any other day I would give this to Fallout, but the variety of ways you can complete a mission and long term consequences depending on how you do is far more important to me than the name of a developer (The same reason I’m not falling all over myself about RAGE). Fallout: NV looks nice but it’s the exact same engine as Fallout 3, gameplay hasn’t really changed, and to me it just seems that they’re playing this one safe.

Best Sports Game: NBA Jam

Best Racing Game: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Best Shooter: Medal of Honor

Ok Ok, don’t shoot me, let me explain myself. The guys over at Treyarch displayed a decent amount of footage at E3, the problem I found was that none of it actually looked fun… at all. It just seemed like they were trying to one up Infinity Ward and coming up short (“Modern Warfare 2 had a nuke? Ya… well… we nuked the whole planet, this game takes place on a terraformed Mars, booya! Ya we went there!”) So you’ve got a chopper, sweet. But I know from experience with every one of your games that the gameplay footage shown was on the easiest mode possible, and that you almost died… every time you showed it off. Anyone who’s ever played World at War will tell you that Veteran mode is one of the hardest things they’ve ever done.

Medal of Honor footage was entirely multiplayer and frankly, 30 seconds of multiplayer footage looked a hundred times more fun than the idiotic chopper level in Black Ops. Medal of Honor seems like it will be the perfect balance between COD and Battlefield, while maintaining some of the scope of the Battlefield games they’ve also managed to introduce the close quarters intensity of COD. Take a look at the beta on June 21st.

Best Platformer: Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Best Fighting Game: Marvel vs Capcom 3

Best Action Game: Assassins’ Creed: Brotherhood

Take one-part Assassin’s Creed add one-part Multiplayer and you’ve got a winner folks. The multiplayer for AC: Brotherhood remains true to it’s origins, allowing players to do all the things they would normally be able to do in singleplayer and then using those abilities to kill your friends. Scarily awesome.

Unfortunately I actually forgot to get my press registration in on time this year otherwise I would have been there, luckily I’ve learned my lesson and I guarantee I’ll be there next year.

Now to the real news.

Three words that could either make or break my decade…

Mass Effect Movie.

Legendary Pictures has acquired the film rights to the EA-Bioware epic.  While normally I’d be freaking out over the possibility of them ruining my favorite game, there are a few hints that this might just be the one we’ve been waiting for.  Jon Jashni (Ninja Assassin, Where the Wild Things Are, The Hangover) and Thomas Tull (The Dark Knight) have signed on along with Avi Arad (Spiderman, Ironman) and his son Ari to produce the film, while the co-founders of Bioware, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk will be executive producers.

“We are thrilled to be working with Legendary,” said producer Avi Arad. “EA and BioWare are terrific partners who have created a brilliant piece of fiction with a universe filled with amazing aliens and technology. More importantly, though, they created a parable whose conflicts mirror the ones we currently face in our own world. This story emphasizes the need for all cultures to learn to work together. All this magic is presented in a fast paced action-adventure that makes for the best kind of movie experience.”

Who will direct? Your guess is as good as ours.

I’m hoping for J.J. Abrams.

So Red Dead Review on Monday.

- Dr Strange Lulz

I knew the moment I posted the Black Ops Teaser that Treyarch would come out with more information within a couple of weeks and I’d be forced to make another post about it. Luckily they decided to come out with a few things at the same time so  I don’t really feel like this is a wasted post.

New Trailer

Recently the teaser trailer has been playing on TV, so it was only a matter of time before Treyarch released a new trailer. Later today during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN we’ll be treated to the first full trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Gamestop Pre-Order Bonus

Earlier yesterday Gamestop announced that they would be offering a limited bonus for people who pre-ordered Call of Duty: Black Ops. The first 300,000 people who pre-order the latest installment of COD from Gamestop will receive a limited edition two-sided COD: Black Ops poster, which from the pictures on the Gamestop website actually looks really cool. The posters will be available when you go in to pre-order the game, so you wont have to wait until November.

Again, I’d love to give you more information, but there just isn’t any. Make sure to check out the trailer later today, and get your pre-order in while poster supplies last.

Call of Duty: Black Ops will be available November 9th.

The first thing you’ll notice about Skate 3 is that it’s control scheme is identical to that of it’s predecessors, which is fantastic, as veterans will already know how to play and newcomers can still enjoy the natural feel of the Flickit controls.

Very frequently (especially when it comes to sequels) developers try ‘something different’ and tweak the gameplay mechanics in some way that they feel will make the game more fun, accessible, challenging, etc. and end up annoying their fan base.  I guess Blackbox subscribes to the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” because it’s plain to see that they didn’t feel like messing with the core mechanics behind the game. Sure there are improvements in almost every field, but the way the game feels as you play it remains for the most part unchanged from Skate’s previous iterations.

There really isn’t much of a storyline behind Skate 3. The game starts and Reda (The narrator from the previous two games) hands you off to Shingo so that he can go and manage your company, from which point you basically just go out and do challenges in any old random order until you sell 1,000,000 boards. The end. But seriously? It’s a skateboarding game, not Heavy Rain.

While there are a great many ways to go about selling boards, doing challenges is by far the quickest and easiest. The challenges for the most part are unique and entertaining, offering up everything from games of 1Up against the Pros to  throwing yourself off of buildings for the Hall of Meat, and Deathraces through the Quarry and downtown Port Carverton. One of the nicest things about the challenges in my opinion is the fact that you don’t need to do ALL of them in order to sell 1,000,000 boards, I’m personally not a fan of Hall of Meat, so not being forced to do them makes me pretty happy.

There are a few new additions to the series, the greatest of which is undoubtedly the Create-A-Park editor. As you progress through the game’s challenges, you are rewarded with various obstacles which you can use in Create-A-Park (CAP),  so complete an Own The Spot challenge involving a weird ledge and you might get that ledge for CAP.  If you can think it up, chances are you can build it using CAP. The Create-A-Park editor has the potential to extend the game’s replay value to the point where you might never stop playing it in the first place.

Overall:

Skate 3 is a fantastic title, easily the best of the series. With a framerate upgrade and tweaks to animations, the visuals are solid. Gameplay is as varied and interesting, with very little repetitiveness. Multiplayer and Create-a-Park just top this game off as an absolute ‘must-buy’ for anyone who even thinks that they might enjoy a skateboarding game.

9/10

Blackbox continues to give us remarkable titles, there have been rumors about Skate 3 being the last in the series, while these aren’t confirmed… do us all a favor and go buy Skate 3 so that they decide to make Skate 4.

-  Dr Strange Lulz

Abstergo Wallpaper

The website opens with a video narrated by Dr. Warren Vidic, our out-of-animus nemesis from the first and second games.  The website along with an email that went out to everybody on the Ubisoft mailing list are disguised as Templar recruitment tools, and serve as the only available information about the upcoming title.

So far we know that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood will continue the story of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, now as an experienced and hardened assassin, doing battle against the Templars in the games new location, Rome.

The website offers a glimpse at five weapons (axe, fan, syringe, dagger, and claw), plus a sixth weapon that can be viewed once you’ve completed a simple puzzle. After finishing the puzzle, you’re also given the opportunity to download the image above as a wallpaper in a variety of sizes.

I would love to tell you more, but this is the extent of our knowledge about AC: Brotherhood.

- Dr Strange Lulz

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Opening Cinematic

The Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is being developed by Ubisoft and is scheduled to release on May 18th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. There will also be versions of the game for the Wii, DS, and PSP though they are being developed separately and will feature entirely different gameplay.

There have been many incarnations of the prince over the years, and other than the original it seems like the Sands of Time Prince remains the fan favorite. With that in mind Forgotten Sands will return to the original storyline set forth in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and takes place in the seven year gap between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. The Prince’s character model will be a blend of the models from Sands of Time and Warrior Within to reflect the gradual change.

We’ve come a long way

Stay tuned for an upcoming review of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands when it releases on May 18th.

- Dr Strange Lulz

To sum it up, Move is effectively Sony’s answer to the Wii’s nunchuks, they even look similar… but that’s where the similarities end. Unlike the Wii, Sony’s motion controller is boasting 1:1 tracking. What does this mean? Well anyone who’s ever used the Wii’s motion controller can attest to the fact that there is a delay between your actions and the effect on your screen. The Move doesn’t have that lag. 1:1 motion tracking basically means that as your action is being performed, the results are showing up on the screen with zero delay.

Unlike many peripherals which release with only a handful of games with which they can be used, Sony is offering over 20 launch titles are in development  to further separate the Move from the Wii and it’s shovelware.  With the support of companies like Activision, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, THQ, and Square Enix (Just to name a few) it’s likely that we’ll see some incredible games with hopefully equally incredible uses for the Move.

Alright now lets take a look at the hardware that makes it all possible.

The Move has everything you’d expect from a controller, analog stick, triggers, standard face buttons (on both controls actually), and a D-pad. So instead we’ll talk about what makes the Move unique.

The first thing you’ll notice is the the tracking light (ya, the funny ball at the top of the controller) yes it’s stupid looking, but its what allows the Move to track with the precision that it does. It tracks players movement as well as registering depth, unlike infrared motion tracking, the Move can tell whether the controller is moving closer or farther away from the camera, thus allowing it to account for motions like stabbing and punching.

One of the most interesting features of the Move is actually on the inside. The Move and it’s Sub-controller use gyroscopes, accelerometers, and terrestrial magnetic sensors to accurately measure the pitch, roll, yaw, and speed of the controller. How will this affect gaming? Instead of just choosing between three different shots in tennis games, you’ll be able to put spin on the ball just as you would in real life as the Playstation Eye tracks the Move’s roll. Precision is what separates these two controllers at the end of the day.

Over all, the Move is shaping up to be one of the best peripherals in recent history. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a particularly big fan of peripherals, but I’ve honestly got high hopes for this one.