Ok this time we have a variety of shots from the latest level shown at PAX this year, the game is shaping up really well from the stills and limited video going around right now, hopefully we get a hands on preview as we come into November for the final piece of the puzzle.
Check out the shots below and we apologize for the resize on the artwork, it was 30mb and that’s just insane for a JPG
Ok, so we’re not going to PAX this year, but we can bring you a teaser from the upcoming Dark Carnival campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 and a slew of new pictures to enjoy.
I know I said that I had no idea when more info or assets would drop and I really didn’t at the time. Anyway enjoy this and as soon as more videos or pictures come out we’ll have them here.
Enjoy!
BTW: yeah that’s right we just posted a boatload of amazing Left 4 Dead 2 concept art in full res. 
Atlus dropped word that their puzzle game Droplitz on Steam has hit 1.99 for the weekend. The game is much like Pipe Dream in a sense, players guide the drops coming from the top section to the appropriate containers and earn chains of points from there. Nothing too complex and something easily worth a few dollars. If you have the means and the desire I’d suggest picking it up, casual games always have had a place with the community and this is just an example of how something simple can pass some time without causing a brain hemorage.
DLC is always a sketchy thing for Rock Band, sometimes a player gets some great artists and other times it makes you regret even looking. This week a few personal favorites arrived on the DLC slated for next week.
· Billy Idol – “Mony Mony”
· Billy Idol – “Rebel Yell”
· Fleetwood Mac – “Don’t Stop”
· Fleetwood Mac – “World Turning”
· Jet – “She’s a Genius”
· Tom Petty – “I Won’t Back Down”
· Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
Billy Idol is great and the fact that I can destroy my vocal chords trying to sing like him in any capacity is just a good time waiting to happen. Look for these tracks next Tuesday in the Rock Band Store.
Sure it has been a little while since Comic-Con and news has been dead but we’re here to kick game back up a little while we wait for the latest info from Valve. Unfortunately future play testing for us does look limited. I managed to get a hands on at E3 and at Comic-Con, but I don’t think we’re going to see a preview build in our Steam list this year as the game has so much attention already. We will have a review once it lands though.
Anyway, lets jump into some fun media. First up the Left 4 Dead 2 E3 trailer:
At E3 we hit the French Quarter with guns blazing, health packs equipped and fire axes ready to rumble. The game was fast paced with large swarms operating from multiple angles. The melee option was troublesome and slow with large groups making it hard for one to pull their own weight in a fight. One false move and a player was zombie bait hoping to escape to their friends before they got mowed down.
At Comic-Con things spiced up with the “I hate you so much for this” Mudmen, why do I hate them so much? The reason is simple, Mudmen attack with melee and eventually clog up the screen with a film making it incredibly hard to figure out what you’re doing and in the event of a swarm this means the player has to shove like crazy hoping that in the end their friends will have protected them and that they don’t get mauled in the process as the screen clears up. For some this may feel like a move out of an arcade shooter but really it works in the moment. The other big shift was that the melee in the game seemed to take a back seat, weapons were there but the swarm response seemed slower and staggered for those packing melee special items to allow players to have a chance while maintaining their rules about recharging energy. Lesser attack groups and a focus on accuracy to survive works for the game but really I could do without it, in a zombie outbreak I think it would be funner to let the silly person with the frying pan get eaten while the survivors escape loaded to the teeth with ammo and grenades.
Let’s hope we see some more news for Left 4 Dead 2, right now Crash Course is slated to arrive this September to hold Left 4 Dead players over until the sequel hits this November.
For PC gamers beta testing is a way to evaluate the value of a game before it hits retail and it’s just a chance to try out cool things for free on the side. Namco has a unique pool of 50 spots open right now on their website for those interested.
EA has already taken a few international fighters over to their side of the fence since this issue broke out, today though the company announces they’ve picked up Randy Couture and Jay Hieron as well.
“I have been a part of MMA for over 10 years and I am excited about the global visibility that a game like EA SPORTS MMA will bring to the sport,” said Randy Couture. “Like my fighting career, I look forward to taking on all comers in EA SPORTS MMA.”
Randy Couture, a 6’1”, 220 pound heavyweight, who currently holds a 16-9 record and is a five-time MMA champion. Couture, a living legend in the MMA world, utilizes his wrestling expertise to take down and control opponents before finishing them off with ground and pound strikes. Couture is scheduled to fight at the end of this month against former Pride World Heavyweight Champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. In addition, this is not Couture’s first foray into the world of video games, as he was featured in EA’s Command & Conquer™: Red Alert™ 3 as Commander Warren Fuller.
Jay “The Thoroughbred” Hieron, a high-profile fighter, joins the EA SPORTS MMA roster and will be taking on Jesse Taylor in tonight’s STRIKEFORCE fight on in San Jose, California.
Hieron currently holds a 17-4 record and the Long Island native utilizes his wrestling prowess as his primary fighting style but has become a formidable striker as well. He fights out of Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas and was the last Welterweight Champion of the International Fight League.
EA SPORTS is sponsoring three fighters in the STRIKEFORCE event, including Jay Hieron, Gegard Mousasi, and Renato Sobral.
How the UFC will respond? no one really knows but it is crazy to see things picking up steam after all the initial fire went down about kicking people out of the association.
With Comic-Con around the corner and word of L4D2 being on scene with new features I figured it would be nice to drop firsthand impressions that I got over at E3 in the Valve suite.
The game mechanics are always a key focus with these things, the gameplay to L4D is very much preserved from the state of the first preview, gameplay was fast and the hordes were still in heavy numbers from multiple angles, players had decent reload speeds, a good variety of power with weapons and of course melee for when things got dirty. The biggest introduction into the game is the new secondary weapon system, as it stands it feels a bit rough, sure you get really cool weapons to swing around but there’s a lag on the weapon, the gesture is a slightly delayed getting off, the execution is epic but the recharge on the next swing feels like a millenia especially given that these have to be used face to face with zombies. Major attacks upon the player end up causing the weapon to be released and overall it’s just not the most effective way to get out of being violated by a giant swarm right now. They say that they have 20 new items to debut at Comic-Con so we’ll see how that pans out.
Enemy mechanics have changed up slightly, high speed dashes to safety or to turn of sirens or reach safe points are all new, in the stage we played we hit a mid-way safe house to go through before hitting the next branch of fighting, things like that keep the game interesting and let newer players learn how to get their act together by healing in a safe area for the most part, they do have tanks around them or witches, the game also rewards those who run into the fray with a brand new friend. The Charger, a tank like creature dedicated to penetrating breaking your body in ways you never thought possible, is he easy to take down? kinda, if you don’t get drilled by him first as he has the potential to ruin a whole team in a single charge.
As it stands L4D2 is shaping up to be quite an entertaining game, given I have about 350-400 hours on L4D I can say I’ll be looking forward to the next installment when it lands this November unless something terribly wrong happens at SDCC next week.
Recent news from UGO is giving the community a heads up that Dana White is ready to clean house with those under his fighting franchise group the UFC, the reason being that he’s a bit miffed over EA apparently giving him the boot in the past with not very flattering remarks about what UFC is to them, as many know UFC games have come about over the years through other vendors, THQ has been vital in their latest venture and so they’re sticking close to that.
The reference to house cleaning though comes from the recent announcement of MMA from EA, a Mixed Martial Arts fighting game to use dynamics and graphics and so on from Fight Night Round 4 something that has been pretty widely recieved with praise as of late. Dana White notes this according to UGO
But, what’s to stop EA from signing licensed fighters to associate with their game? The answer: Dana White, natch. Besides Randy Couture, who struck a deal in court with the UFC. White said of fighters who deal with EA, ”You won’t be in the UFC.”
Pretty hardcore I mean I know in WWE people are basically the property of the company, their likeness and all other such items basically get bought up at day 1 unless they copyright and protect themselves beforehand. Given that the UFC was a lot more free formed and independent and has top fighters alternating all the time it seemed like it would be hard to impose given how everyone seems to dabble in other competitions as well. Apparently not though, one would have wonder what would happen if EA bought up their top 10-15% of their talent though, would Dana White really kick off all those PPV earning seat stacking fighters?
I have to wonder this because EA likes to get what they want, and given the size of their company, money isn’t much of an issue when it comes to securing a dominant license. It’s a unique battle because it’s a battle of games and a battle of corporate figures as well, and even potentially the UFC fights if fighters do take “incentives” to be in the new MMA game and suddenly start vanishing out of key events.
Source: UGO
Hey there everyone, it’s been a really busy month for things. E3 planning is always a death trap and on top of that I’ve been reviewing a ton of things for the mothership.
We’ll have some shorthand reviews here of the good the bad and the ugly soon for these items.
Terminator Salvation
Antec P193
Antec Skeleton
E3 2009
Klonoa
The Munchables
Battlestations: Pacific
and more most likely. Sorry about the lack of updates, but yeah, my sanity only goes so far for writing things at times. Enjoy the awesome fan made green lantern trailer and I’ll catch up soon with tales from LA.
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