G1 Gaming News
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Resident Evil 5
The countdown for Resident Evil 5 has ended, leaving a new website in its place after a short sequence of flashes images from the game. The website has 4 sections including "Videos", "Gallery", "Downloads" and "About". The video section contains the new and old trailers, while the images section holds 21 images mainly from the trailers. The downloads section has two wallpapers with notes scribbled onto them as well as a few icons for instant message programs/avatars. The about section talks about the plot of the upcoming game as well as the development team and the franchises history.
Tom Clancy's EndWar
EndWar is an upcoming real-time strategy game from Ubisoft that takes a unique approach to war; it uses voice commands.The battle was in Paris, and we played as Russia against the European Federation, battling back and forth across the Seine River for territorial supremacy. Voice commands aside, EndWar is a straightforward RTS game, with a very easy-to-grasp rock-paper-scissors dynamic. Tanks kill transports, transports kill gunships, and gunships kill tanks. You also need infantry to capture victory locations, and artillery can kill pretty much anything from a distance, or get killed by anything from nearby.
We battled back and forth, but by sending our tanks after their transports and our transports after their choppers, all the while capturing points with our troops, we managed to swing the battle drastically in our favor. With the enemy back on their heels, the match entered the "EndWar" phase, which gave them access to a WMD strike. They quickly hit us with a devastating attack that annihilated all of our transports and troops, who had been stationed at a base. Fortunately, we had built up enough points by dint of our victory locations for a WMD strike of our own, and the screen flashed white as we blasted an entrenched enemy stronghold in which infantry had been garrisoned in convincingly French-looking buildings.
Throughout the whole match, we never had a backfire for a correctly stated command, and the game took place in a noisy room. Although all of the commands and syntax will no doubt take some getting used to, from what we saw, learning to speak EndWar should be a uniquely entertaining lesson when the game ships later this year.
Venetica (Screens)
New Xbox 360 Game(Nex GeN)
Take on the roll of Scarlett as you develop and use her powers to save her father and curse the necromancer.
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
If you jump straight into multiplayer, you won't notice a massive difference from Guitar Hero III. The same modes persist here: Face-Off, Pro Face-Off, Battle, and Co-op. You'll also be able to choose from the same familiar characters you've seen time and again in previous Guitar Hero games. Taking a look at the tracklist, there's obviously a heavy emphasis on the work of Steven Tyler and company, but for the most part, the gameplay is much the same in the multiplayer.
No, it's when you kick off a new career that the realization you're playing an Aerosmith game really hits you. The first chapter in career mode is called "Getting the Band Together." It begins with a brief vignette showing the members of Aerosmith waxing nostalgic about their old stomping grounds, Nipmuc High School. Slightly disappointing is the fact that these videos are shown in grainy standard definition, even on the Xbox 360 version that we played; but that's a forgivable offense with the reworked visuals we'll get into later.
Each of these chapters is structured like a real show, so you'll see a pair of opening bands in each segment before you can unlock the Aerosmith tunes. The very first band you'll live vicariously through is the power pop group Cheap Trick, performing their song "Dream Police." After that it's Mott the Hoople's "All the Young People." Once you get through the supporting bands, Aerosmith takes the stage with their songs "Make It" and "Uncle Salty." If you win over the crowd, you'll be able to perform "Draw the Line" as an encore. Some of the opening bands you'll see later on in the game include New York Dolls, Lenny Kravitz, Run-D.M.C., The Cult, and The Clash. The latter seems quite appropriate, considering it's the 1977 Clash song "Complete Control," featuring the lyric "You're my guitar hero!" As far as the selection process goes, we're told these bands were either influential to Aerosmith, influenced by Aerosmith, or just bands that the group really likes and couldn't resist putting in the game. It would be nice to see those designations made in the song selection, but as it stands you're only told if it's a cover or not (of which there are very few, luckily).
A lot of people can't think of Aerosmith without thinking of the famous cover of "Walk This Way" done by Run-D.M.C. It was a historic moment for the rap genre that brought over a lot of new fans from the rock-and-roll side of the fence. So it goes without saying that this memorable moment in the history of the band is featured as one of the songs in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. In fact, Neversoft brought in D.M.C. to perform the song so that they could re-create the iconic music video.
As you progress further into the career mode, you'll make your way from the aforementioned Nipmuc High all the way to the famous Orpheum Theatre in Boston, with even a trip to the Super Bowl halftime show. You'll continually unlock more vignettes giving you some insight into the history of the band, with chapters titled "First Taste of Success," "The Triumphant Return," "International Superstars," and "Great American Band."
Itagaki: Xbox 360 is the Most Powerful Hardware
Ahead of the release of Ninja Gaiden II on Xbox 360 on June 6th, MCV caught up with head of developer Team Ninja Tomonubu Itagaki.
MCV: "Ninja Gaiden II has got some great previews from the press – how proud of it are you?"
Itagaki: "I’m very happy with it. It’s not 100 per cent as I think that’s not possible to do, but I think that I was successful in making a game that no one else could. This is a game that only my team and I would be able to make."
MCV: "Do you prefer to develop on the Xbox 360, rather than the other consoles?"
Itagaki: "Yes. In my opinion it is the most powerful hardware. I have a lot of friends that develop on it so in some ways I regard it like being at home when I’m working on it. There’s no reason for me to go to a strangers house to make games."
Ninja Gaiden II
After the brief cutscene featuring the red-winged demonic fiend, you'll assume Ryu's role. You won't encounter Zedonius immediately, because you'll be preoccupied with an array of smaller enemies to dispose of. The setting is a snow-laden city, reminiscent of Russia. You'll have to proceed through narrow streets and open courtyards, over sandbagged defences, and around deserted tanks as you progress through the level on your mission to stop the archfiend.
Hindering your progress will be wave after wave of soldiers equipped with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They usually appear two at a time and unleash a series of rockets at you in quick succession. It certainly pays to dodge these barrages--if you're a sitting duck your health will quickly diminish. While sprinting straight towards your assailants is one way to avoid staying put, it's a challenge to dodge projectiles en route as you try to get within striking range without being hit. Another option is to hide behind cover, wait for the soldiers to reload, and then use your bow to take them out from afar, which works well if you value your life. Although your health bar will regenerate, it will happen only once you've cleared an area of enemies, and each time you bear the brunt of an enemy's attack, your health bar capacity will be permanently reduced by a small amount. Thankfully, full health can be restored by using health packs or by finding restore points.
In addition to foot soldiers, we encountered some pesky dogs, which looked to be armed with explosives (but of course!), and some larger enemies, including one that resembled the queen from Aliens. Although we didn't see them, we're sure the Spider Clan, as well as more unworldly enemies, will still be on the lookout for Ryu.
While Ninja Gaiden was a challenging game for even hardcore gamers, Ninja Gaiden II's difficulty has been dropped a notch so as to cater to a wider audience. Despite that, there's a range of difficulty levels, and even the easiest one (acolyte) will be a challenge for Ninja Gaiden novices. Thankfully, we were able to play through the first couple of levels before attempting level eight, but even with a bit of gameplay under our belt, it certainly wasn't a walk in the park.
The idea is that you'll unlock new moves, abilities, and ninpo (magic), as well as level up your weapons, as you progress through the game. Once you've gotten to the harder and more advanced levels, therefore, you should have the appropriate training to be able to vanquish any foe that stands in your way, though it still might take you a few attempts when it comes to the more challenging situations and boss battles.
Alone in the Dark
Alone in the Dark has been built using a proprietary version of Half-Life's Havoc 4.5 engine by the studio behind the recent Test Drive Unlimited, with a script by Lorenzo Carcaterra. The veteran writer is best known for his novel Sleepers, which became a film starring Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Brad Pitt, and others--and is set in a version of New York that is falling apart around you.
The game opens in true survival horror fashion, with you waking up confused with no idea who you are or what's going on. Slowly the room comes into focus as you hear a conversation with references to various cultlike activities that are just coming to a head, but your vision soon blurs again--but this is corrected by simply closing your eyes. This mechanic continues for a small part of the first section as you slowly return to full consciousness, being dragged and ordered through an interior complex until you finally find a washbasin with a mirror, and start to get an idea of who you are and what's going on.
Alone in the Dark's attempts to break hardened video gaming cliches are obvious from the start. There are no inventory menus, ammo indicators, or health bars in either first- or third-person views--which you are free to switch between throughout. Your inventory is limited to what you can store in your rather capacious leather jacket, and it's accessed by looking down into it and seeing what you have stashed the various pockets and pouches sewn into the lining. Here you can not only see what items you have, but also work out how to combine them; if you've got a bottle of booze and a rag, you can make an instant Molotov cocktail, but add some tape and a box of ammo and you've got a much more powerful flying bomb.
Metal Gear Solid 4
"If you’ve ever loved any one of the Metal Gear games, or any moments from the series, there will come a moment when MGS 4 will send your spirits soaring. If you’ve loved them all, well then there’ll be many, many more. It’s a masterpiece. But forget you read that. Go play it and find out for yourself. Because it’s the kind of game that, if you play it after being told it’s a masterpiece, might end up disappointing you because of the hype. So forget the hype. Forget that it’s a magnificent, ground-breaking, masterpiece. Just play it, and enjoy a dazzling, heart-lifting, voyage of discovery."
Prince of Persia
Visually, Prince of Persia is looking quite promising, which should come as no surprise given that it uses the same engine as Ubisoft's other recent period piece and 2007 holiday hit, Assassin's Creed. However, the game marks an artistic departure from what has gone before, with the team opting for what it refers to as an "illustrated" style. While the team has attempted to distance the technique from the cel-shaded approach taken by games such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Viewtiful Joe, the graphics do bear some resemblance--although they're certainly not cel-shaded to quite the extent of the graphics in either of those games.
A mix between the stylised look of cel-shaded games and ones that aim for realism, Prince of Persia's unique aesthetic makes for a refreshing change. There are subtle graphical effects too, including black ash that seems to float in midair (perhaps serving as a visual clue to the corruption that exists), dust blowing across the landscape, and light bloom effects, all of which help reinforce the environment's dark, forbidding, and corrupted nature.
real cool!!!
Shaun White Snowboarding First Look
Shaun White Snowboarding will let you tackle the slopes in four different locales: Japan, Europe, Park City, Utah, and Alaska. The latter was the only mountain shown during the event, which featured a mixture of huge jumps and cliffs on the upper elevations, gradually turning into more of a slalomlike course as you continued down the mountain toward the tree line.
At first blush, the game seems to provide a slightly more realistic take on snowboarding than snowboarding games in the past have done. Sure, there are still high-flying jumps and lots of tricks to pull off, but, at least in the build we saw, everything seemed to be a bit toned down from the SSX games we've all been playing for the past few years. There were neither neon signs to blast through nor any turbo boosts that we saw; it looks to play it pretty straight. That isn't to say that the game is completely free from spectacle, however. In fact, the visuals we saw in Shaun White--which is being built with the same engine used in Assassin's Creed--were impressive indeed, with big, realistic-looking player models and environments that were massive to say the least. The game will also have lots of gear and equipment to unlock from officially licensed manufacturers; some of which will affect your rider's attributes.
The surface your boarder is on looks to play a big role in how your board reacts to your input--producers told us there's been a good deal of focus during development on ensuring that different conditions will all feel unique. Riding on hard-pack snow, for example, will make carving difficult, while on power, there will be more sliding as you make your way down the mountain. And when it comes to those icy stretches, you'll be lucky if you can move your boarder at all; best to just hang on and hope for the best.
As you make your way down the slopes, you'll earn combos for pulling off tricks, and though the controls for those tricks aren't finalized yet, we do know a little bit about the combo system. As you nail successive tricks, you'll earn a combo multiplier that will earn you more points the longer you keep the multiplier alive. Should you crash, your combo will be reset and the game will keep track of statistics, such as biggest combo or longest session without bailing.
Far Cry 2
A mixture of cutting-edge graphics, open-ended gameplay, and sophisticated artificial intelligence made the original Far Cry a hit on the PC. For Far Cry 2, the development team at Ubisoft Montreal is still keeping those essential ingredients--gorgeous, lush environments, tricky AI, and a sandbox mentality--intact while changing up all the surrounding elements, such as the setting, storyline, and characters, to keep things fresh. As a result, when we first got our hands on the game at Ubisoft's recent spring press event, we felt like it was running into an old friend who had recently spent a load of cash on a wardrobe upgrade.
Far Cry 2's story has seemingly no ties to the original game, even if the protagonists in both games have the standard "square-jawed white guy" look about them. In the original, you fought it out in a tropical setting looking to rescue a mysterious woman from harm. In the sequel, you play as a mercenary whose goal is to take down an arms dealer known as The Jackal. Little is known about him, except that he's profiting greatly while perpetuating a conflict in the African savannah where the game takes place. As you hunt down The Jackal, you'll be caught in the middle of various and conflicting interests of multiple factions involved in the war. Which sides you work with and against will go a long way in determining your path through this multifaceted storyline.
The demo on hand at the Ubisoft event began overlooking a green, murky-looking swamp. Our first goal was to meet up with our point of contact, Frank, in a shack near the stating point. He was looking for our help in an operation he was planning, and our portion of it was to take down a nearby radio antenna that was broadcasting propaganda for one of the local factions.
After agreeing to the mission from Frank, we also met up with Warren, one of many non-player characters you'll run into in the game. Far Cry 2's open-ended nature is designed so that you can play the game any way you want--that extends to which characters you help in the game and which ones you ignore. If you decide to help out a character, he might be available to you later as a buddy. By chatting with Warren, he ensured his assistance should things get too hairy out in the field. It wouldn't be long before we needed to take him up on his offer.
As with the original game, vehicles look to play a big role in the missions of Far Cry 2. As soon as we left Frank's shack with the mission in mind, we hopped into a jeep (loaded with a convenient mounted machine gun on the rear) and began speeding toward our destination. Though you always have a map on hand to check for your mission locales, one cool touch is that the occasional street signs you run into in villages will illuminate in the direction of your goal. We made a few turns and, around the last bend, came to our first objective: a walled enemy encampment full of bad guys that were just begging to be filled full of bullets.
Niko Wants More Money?
And we’d listen to him, he’s a badass. Michael Hollick, the voice and mo-cap actor behind GTA IV’s Niko Bellic, is…voicing concern…that while the game is making more cash than any of us can comprehend, he was only paid $100k for 15 months work. He’s got a fair point…
Windows 7
The project was called MinWin, a Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) effort to slim down the next version of Windows. The company said it had heard, loud and clear, that another bloated OS like Vista wouldn't fly. Then Windows 7 galumphed into the room.
New BAJA screenshots
PSP Now Has a Camera!!!
The deputy head of a Nagoya technical college has been arrested for allegedly using a PSP and its camera peripheral to look up the skirt of a 19-year old woman. The dirty 59-year old administrator supposedly performed the wicked deed on the Nagoya Kintetsu train line.
The alleged incident happened on the 27th, and the man has since been arrested under Japan's anti-stalking laws. Just in case you were wondering, the above image is indeed an official reconstruction of the event -- something that may be useful to any of you wishing to emulate this most sleazy crime.
Helio Ocean 2
Yep, more spy shots, this time of the rumored successor to Helio's impressive Ocean smartphone. Details are sketchy—and no, it doesn't look like there's a touchscreen—but a better camera, Flash support, and a touch pad might all be on tap.Engadget Mobile managed to get its hands on a fuzzy photo, which reveals a sleak new silver-and-black case, reminiscent of the upcoming BlackBerry Bold and, of course, the Apple iPhone.According to Engadget Mobile's insiders, the Ocean 2 is still a dual slider—that is, you slide open the phone one way for a numeric keypad, another way for full-QWERTY action. Word is that the jumbo-sized display isn't a touchscreen, but that the navigational pad is, indeed, touch-enabled, a la Microsoft's Zune.
Other leaked features include a 3-megapixel camera (versus 2MP on the original Ocean), 1GB of internal memory, Flash support for the browser (take that, iPhone), and 30fps video recording. Nice, but Engadget Mobile's tipsters warn that the Ocean 2's list of features is still in flux.
No word on pricing or release date quite yet—and also, keep in mind that there's still no official word from Helio.
That said, a Helio phone that looks suspiciously like the Ocean 2 cleared the FCC in late March, while the original Ocean—which sold for $300 at launch—is now just $99. Sure sounds like something's brewing. [Photo credit: Engadget Mobile]
PlayOnLinux version 3 release plan
PlayOnLinux is a piece of sofware which allow you to install and use easily numerous games and softwares designed to run with Microsoft®'s Windows®. Indeed, currently, still few games are compatible with GNU/Linux, and it could be a factor preventing from migrate to this system. PlayOnLinux brings an accessible and efficient solution to this problem, cost-free and rescpetful of the free softwares.
No, it isn't a rumor. PlayOnLinux v3 is planned for soon. By the way, it explains that there wasn't any new version during last days.
PS3 Firmware 2.4 to include in-game XMB and Trophy support
G1 has good authority that the upcoming PS3 Firmware 2.4 will include in-game XMB and Trophy support.
We’re told that the added XMB feature allows users to play their own music in-game.
Programming tools to support the update have apparently now gone out to developers.
We’re unaware that a release date for the software has been set. Sony has already said that in-game XMB wil be added to PS3’s functionality this summer.
This is unconfirmed. Just remember where you heard it first.