Another Transformers movie means another Transformers game. For many longtime fans, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the other robots in disguise are special characters, and hope endures that someday, a Transformers game will come along that does them justice. Unfortunately, Dark of the Moon is not that game. The action in this third-person shooter isn’t bad, but it also isn’t anything remarkable. There aren’t any surprises or standout moments during its brief campaign, and the shallow multiplayer isn’t likely to keep you coming back for very long.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon carries over much of what made War for Cybertron great. A hybrid of third-person shooter and vehicle combat, the game allows you to shift between vehicle and robot form at will, and each Transformer has its own particular abilities and strengths. While the ability to pick up new weapons is gone, each character has distinctive tools of destruction that are typically pretty interesting to use.

Dark of the Moon serves as a prologue to the upcoming film of the same name. There’s a story here about the evil Decepticons desperately looking for something, but the game never makes it clear why we should care about the outcome, so it’s hard to feel invested in what happens.And because you play as both Autobots and Decepticons, you’re not rooting for either side to prevail.Some significant mechanical changes rear their heads, too — vehicle mode now defaults to Stealth Force, where you have so many weapons, your Transformers is literally splitting at the seams (no, really — guns poke out of every orifice). It seems like a cool idea, and it is… until you realize that this is the first of several small changes that drastically alter the way the game plays. The thing is, in Stealth Force mode, your character can take much more punishment than he can in robot form — a 180 from War for Cybertron. The weapons you carry in robot form have to be reloaded all the time, but your Stealth Force cannons come equipped with endless piles of ammunition.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon feels like another casualty in the movie-game war of short deadlines. The ideas for something great are certainly here, because the fundamentals were pulled from a great game. But Transformers: Dark of the Moon stretches what High Moon Studios had time to build across too much game, leading to a dull, frustrating endeavor that feels even longer than it is. .They say that Transformers offer more than meets the eye. But with Dark of the Moon, what you see is an ordinary and unattractive third-person action game, and what you see is exactly what you get.

Source : gamespot

Gears of War 3 is the spectacular conclusion to one of the most memorable and celebrated sagas in video games. Developed by Epic Games exclusively for Xbox 360.Now, series shop Epic Games is stating its desire that the third entry in the shooter series–due out worldwide September 20–will keep up with the pace set by its predecessors. Gears of War 3 plunges you into a harrowing tale of hope, survival, and brotherhood.

As for the title itself, Gears of War 3–originally pegged to debut in April–begins with the last human city having been obliterated and series hero Marcus Fenix trying to protect the remaining humans from the Locust horde and from newer, deadlier foes, the mutating Lambent.

In Gears of War 3, fight on as Marcus Fenix, the grizzled war hero and leader of Delta Squad. Eighteen months after the fall of the last human city, the war against the Locust rages on. Meanwhile, deep beneath the surface, a fearsome new threat is infecting the planet from within. With survivors scattered and civilization in ruins, time is running out for Marcus and his comrades as they fight to save the human race.

Gears of War 3 will be available in three versions this September: standard ($60), Limited ($80), and Epic ($150). The centerpiece of this year’s $150 Gears of War 3 Epic Edition will be a limited-run Marcus Fenix statue.

Source : ign

BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams was the logo that show up in the latest teaser trailer released on 2K Games website. The trailer is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the official BioShock 2 site. PlayStation Network will also got another version. The 3 different platform version of the BioShock 2 teaser indicated that it will be released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC platforms.

The BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams trailer take setting on Atlantic Coast, showed a now-older Little Sister holding a doll resembling a big daddy.As she receded into the distance, silhouettes appearing to be art deco skyscrapers rose from the sand before the trailer cuts to a barnacle-encrusted logo for “BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams.”

Resident Evil 5 is probably become the “anticipately waited” game in 2009, that will be released both in Playstation 3 and Xbox360. Officially announced in 2005, the trailer become one of the most popular that being watched besides many popular games like Metal Gear Solid 4.  The game itself will be set in 10 years after the event in original Resident Evil, which Chris Redfield now is being a member of Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), an organization who stands to investigate unusual cases related to bioterror threat, relating to what happened in 10 years before.

Chris is sent to the Africa, to investigate an incident which causes a population there being infected by unknown virus that will threatening every human existence there. Throughout the game, we will exploring about Chris’s life after Resident Evil 1, and what happened to S.T.A.R.S. In several trailers that has released worlwide, we can see that many “old stars” from previous Resident Evil series such as Albert Wesker and Sherly Birkin, will be showed up in this game. Konami has stated that this game will introduce a new character, named Sheva Alomar, a new member of BSAA in West African branch, that will assist Chris in this game.

The most interesting mode that has to be highly anticipated for Resident Evil hardcore fans is the new Co-Operation mode, that will be involved whether online or offline mode, otherwise you can choose between your friends or an AI that will teamed up with you throughout the game. It means that you can play with another player in online mode (if you have a good internet connection), or offline mode, which both of them will be requiring a good teamwork skill if you want to survive until the end of the game. In some points, you and your friend will be seperated during gameplay. Meanwhile, Konami has also developed a good AI, that can be used if you want to play in single mode. So don’t worry if you do not have a time to play with your friends!

Requesting for help?

The gameplay itself will be inherited from previous Resident Evil series, Resident Evil 4. But thanks to the power of Next Generation console, Konami states that the game’s environment will also heavily affected in this game, for example you can use anything that appear in the scene to annihilated all zombies, rather than using all of your ammos. And the lighting effects will also affected Chris and Sheva sight, where in a dark areas you will have a limited vision in the screen, but in a bright areas, you won’t find it. Maybe the most enjoyable feature that will added an extra excitement while playing this game is “single share inventory”. It means that you (Chris) and your partner (Sheva), will share a same inventory. Every bullets that you consumed must to be watched carefully, every MedKit or items that useful for a player must to be used wisely. Don’t be greedy!

There is also improvement in battle factor, while you can perform many special melee attacks, such as wrestling style suplex or boxer punch, together with a finishing move such as stomp or straight punch to the enemies face. Many special move that you can creatively makes, many excitement that will thrilled you until you finished this game.

Take this!

Resident Evil 5 will be released on March 5, for Japan version, and March 13, for Europe and North American version. Each console will get many unique special bonus, for example in Playstation 3 version you can get “Making-of-Feature”, meanwhile in Xbox360 the game will be delivered in metal case with additional “Biohazard 5 Selection Tracks” soundtracks. But that’s for Japan version of course. Limited Edition will be available with a32-page art book, together with an 2GB USB flash drive with Tricell logo, and a waist pouch with the BSAA logo. But once again, this Limited Edition is at least just for Japs.

Besides taunting gamers with a multiplayer teaser video a few weeks ago, Activision has been fairly silent about the multiplayer aspect of this eagerly awaited game. So what did they tell us tonight? Plenty. They dumped a nice Wager Match video feature on us earlier in the evening, and we’ll have videos and more for you from the event later today, but right now we’re going to tell you about what they showed off. So sit back, kick your feet up, and delve into the world of Call of Duty Black Ops – multiplayer.

First of all, I have to mention something about the setting itself. This was the first time I’ve ever been to a press event at the California Science Center, located on the rim of the University of Southern California campus. There’s an IMAX theater there, and a sprawling set of outdoor buildings. So for this event, they brought in military displays, computers that looked as dated as the WOPR from WarGames with bleeping and blooping lights, DEFCON signage, nettings, smoke machines, tactical displays, and … girls dressed in black pencil skirts and white tanks tops, replete with chunky black nerdy glasses.

Were they meant to be nerdy dreamgirls? Government workers circa 1960? Sexy librarians? I’m not sure exactly what Treyarch and Activision were going for here, but the girls were definitely attractive. I’m just not sure what they had to do with the game. Too bad they didn’t let us play them in multiplayer, because that’s a video feature I would have filmed myself. Anyhow, talk about digression. I’m sure you’re thinking “Forget about the women, man! Get on to the game!”

Before we got to play, we were ushered inside the massive IMAX so that they could give us a presentation about the game. With the giant looming image of the single soldier that we’ve come to identify with CoD: BO looming over everything, executive producer Dan Suarez walked out to the strains of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” to kick things off. Dan welcomed us to the event (taking time to thank Xbox 360, who was a partner in the event — as before, Xbox 360 will be getting DLC first for the game), and then introduced Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia, who in turn briefly welcomed us, and he introduced the multiplayer leads Dan Bunting and David Vonderhaar.

Dan and Dave tag-teamed their way through the presentation, hitting the three points that were hammered home throughout the event: Compete, Customize, Create

Compete

This portion was kicked off by diving into a live multiplayer match, where Dan Bunting was piloting his way through Team Deathmatch. It looked like your normal Deathmatch, with Dan nabbing several kills in quick order. But then, whaaaat? It was revealed that Dan was playing against all A.I. opponents. In fact, his teammates were A.I. too. They’ve added a mode to the game called Combat Training, that drops you into the multiplayer ready to play. Turns out this started with a simple A.I. bot that they’d built to test things out in the game, and grew from there. Very nice to see. Now you can populate matches with A.I. and train to your heart’s content.

One big change to the game dynamic is that Call of Duty: Black Ops has a money system in the game. They’ve created their own currency, complete with its own symbol, that they call CoD Points. You earn these every time you play the game, and there are ways to boost your cash haul as well. One is via the Wager Matches, shown in the video released yesterday. You’re betting that you’ll finish in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, with descending payouts, and you can even Double Down to try and double your earnings. Of course if you lose, you lose twice as much.

Another way is via Contracts. Contracts are new to the game, and are challenges that you can purchase to try and earn big money, and/or XP. The contracts break down into three different types, Mercenary, Operations, and Specialists, and you might pay a 100 points to accept the Mercenary “SPAS Cruelty” contract, where you have to get 25 kills with the SPAS, or the “Scorched” Specialist contract which needs you to get 5 kills with the flamethrower. There are roughly 8 to 10 per category, and you can try them only once per day. Some contracts require higher levels as well.

You’ll get rewards, large or small depending on the challenge, if you succeed, and you’re also up against a timer: many challenges only give you 40 minutes to an hour of “time alive in game” to finish. Miss that deadline, and you fail the contract. You can have three contracts active at any one time, and you’ll get a notice in-game when you’ve completed one, similar to the notice you get when you unlock a killstreak.

Customize

Call of Duty: Black Ops takes the beloved multiplayer from both Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, and gives it a major shot in the arm. I know it’s nearly sacrosanct to say that Treyarch has beaten Infinity Ward at its own game, but they’ve really done it here. Of course, they’re playing with an engine that IW initially built, which lowers the playing field somewhat, but seriously this multiplayer has an entire vascular system full of steroids pumping through it.

When you customize via Create A Character now, you’ll see their mods show up right there in the menu, so you can immediately see how different your character will look. Especially with the Tier 1 Perks, which establish your core gameplay style. Equip the Scavenger perk, and your character will be a lot of ammo pouches since you resupply yourself from dead enemies. Choose Ghost, and you’ll be wearing a ghillie suit, because you’re invisible to enemy radar. You can also cycle through different faction outfits, so you’ll see what you look like as Urban Black Ops, Urban Spetsnaz, Arctic Black Ops, Arctic Spetsnaz, SOG or NVA. Yes, you can play as a North Vietnamese Army soldier in this game.

There are now three categories of equipment: Lethal, Tactical, and Equipment. They wanted to give characters a more consistent experience in the game, so everything that you can throw that kills someone (frag, semtex, tomahawk, etc) is mapped to the right bumper, and anything you throw to confuse the enemy (smoke grenade, gas grenade, flashbang, decoy, etc) goes on the left bumper. The Equipment category houses the deployables in the game, like the Camera Spike, C4, Tactical Insertion and so on. These are all things you drop in the game, and you can pick them up and move them as well.

You’ll also see your weapon change on your character in the menus, and there are a lot more attachments this time around. But what caught our eye immediately? The Flamethrower add-on. This slings a flamethrower under your barrel (much like the grenade launcher, and it’s activated the same way — hit left on the d-pad) that makes for very toasty opponents. One of our favorite tactics quickly became downing an opponent, and then flaming them while there were last-standing. Whoops. Marshmallows, anyone?

Killstreaks. What’s a CoD game without killstreaks? We counted at least 15 during our hands-on time, and these have to be purchased in the game with CoD Points and in some cases require you to have a certain level before you can buy them. Here’s a list of the ones we saw along with their associated kills necessary to deploy:

• Spy Plane (3)
• RC-XD – the remote control car that goes BOOM! (3)
• Counter-Spy Plane (4)
• SAM Turret – takes out enemy flyers (4)
• Care Package (5)
• Napalm Strike (5)
• Sentry Gun (6)
• Mortar Team (6)
• Attack Helicopter (7)
• Valkyrie Rockets (7)
• Blackbird (8)
• Rolling Thunder (8)
• Chopper Gunner (9)
• Attack Dogs (11)
• Gunship – giving you the chance to both fly the helicopter and attack from it (11)

There are also some very rare Killstreaks that don’t come up often, but whoa momma are they cool. Two that we saw were the Death Machine (a minigun you tote around that pours out lead), and Grim Reaper, which gives you access to the M202 Rocket Launcher. Yes, there is also a steerable rocket that you fire, much like the Redeemer from Unreal Tournament, but we aren’t sure if that’s a killstreak or not. They showed us a brief video of someone firing one, and yes … it’s awesome.

Create

Somewhat under the customize category comes the ability to create your own unique emblem, and we were actually surprised how robust this tool is. You can unlock multiple laters (looks like about 12) for your image, and select from one of over 324 different pieces of clip art that you can rotate, shrink, zoom, flip, or change to outline. Layers allow you to combine multiple items into one image.

Dan and David created a rearing horse with guns for feet (a “Pwny,” if you will), and I created a doppelgänger for Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, complete with a soda cup and straw in his hand. Multiple colors, images, laters, and more mean you’ll play with this a ton. Players can also brand their gun with this image, which comes in very handy in Kill-cams, and you can also customize your red-dot sights to the Nth degree. We really enjoyed playing with one of the loadouts that included a purple smiley-face dot sight.

Even more impressive is the Theater mode, which closely follows the model of Halo’s in-game theater function, albeit with an easier to navigate layout. Within seconds, we were recording kills from our matches, fast-forwarding to key moments, using the Free Camera to check out the entire map, and assemble clips into something we could upload to our File Share. Apparently gamers can upload and share these somehow on Xbox Live, but they didn’t mention anything about PlayStation support just yet. Personally, I’m hoping to bypass the consoles and dump these directly onto Twitter or YouTube. Pausing the game and doing a 360 degree rotation around an opponent that you’ve just capped = extreme fun.

When they unleashed us onto the grounds to go grab some hands-on time, we played on four different maps: Cracked, Launch, Radiation, and Summit. Most of them were fairly large, and some include dynamic events, like the rocket that takes off in Launch when the Russians are ahead in multiplayer. We also got to play the four different revealed gametypes: Sticks and Stones, Gun Game (easily my favorite), Sharpshooter (a close second), and One in the Chamber. Besides that, we ran around briefly in Objective games of Demo, Search and Destroy, Headquarters, and Capture the Flag, all of which behave like their previous counterparts.

But, more on all of that later today, when we have the images and videos from the event ready for you. There’s a lot more Black Ops to come, so please stick around. My two cents worth? I wasn’t looking that forward to this game, to be honest. Now I’m looking at it as a day one must-have. Easily. The multiplayer alone has me salivating for more, and I actually wish I was still playing this right now. When a game can do that to me, even when it’s 4AM in the morning and I’m exhausted, I crave it.

You will, however, collect Blood Coins along the way, experience used as currency in order to unlock new armors, skins, avatars, etc. for the game’s 16 different character types. These “bloodlines” are divided into your four basic classes – healers, melee, ranged and tanks – and come with six unique abilities as well as one ultimate ability to help turn the tide when things start to go south. Examples include the Igniter, whose abilities include fireballs and teleportation, as well as the jet-pack sporting Engineer. Each type is also balanced so that you don’t require any given class. For example, healers can only heal up to 40% of the total team HP.

Fighting games typically fall into one of two camps: on one side you have the over the top arcade action of a title like Marvel vs. Capcom that provides cartoonish antics with unbelievable finishing moves, and on the other side you have titles that strive for simulation and want to bring you all the realistic nuances of the actual sport they’re trying to mimic. But where’s the middle ground? That’s where Supremacy MMA steps into ring with a new game that wants to combine the bloody, violent side of mixed martial arts with the button-mashing action of an arcade title.

Developed by Kung Fu Factory, who have worked on franchises like Mortal Kombat, UFC, WcW, and The Warriors, the game is positioning itself to be a storytelling fighting title that gets into the nitty gritty about why these fighters are fighting, and what they’re fighting for. That’s the key element behind the presentation and gameplay behind the title. To that end, they’ve enlisted former UFC fighter Jens Pulver lend both his likeness and backstory to the game.

“I was there during the early days of MMA and came up when things were just out of control crazy, so stories like mine are perfect for a game that’s taking things back old school like Supremacy MMA,” said Pulver. “The truth is there are thousands of fighters out there struggling for a shot, whether they fight underground, amateur or at the highest levels of the sport. They’re doing it, and Supremacy MMA tells those kinds of stories, so I’m glad that this is the game I get to be a part of.”

According to developer Ricci Rukavina at Kung Fu Factory, every fighter has a story about how they got started, and what drives them to continue stepping into the ring even after a series of humiliating losses. You’ll get to play through those stories, and each fighter will have a unique backstory to experience. You might start brawling in prison, train with someone, and then he’ll put you in touch with someone else to guide you when you get out.

Venues will be diverse throughout the game, but will all be places that make sense (like an abandoned warehouse, a prison, etc.). You’ll encounter mentors in these locations as well, and while many of them will be stepping stones as you play through your fighters story, they will return as locations you can fight in. They’ll be scattered around the globe as well, with one story involving a Russian athlete training to wrestling in the Olympics. What happens to him when he doesn’t win gold and is cast aside by his country? That’s what you’ll play through.

The game also promises a leveling up system where you gain experience through fights. This experience carries over and upgrades your style, although you aren’t tied into one particular area of focus. If you perform a lot of snap kicks, you can level that up specifically, and your tae kwon do as a whole. Punch often? You’ll gain XP in your boxing style. The game offers up the same styles that appear in most MMA fights, ranging from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to judo to takedown-style fighting.

The fighter presentation in the game has a sort of Vertigo graphic novel “In your face!” style of ink and paint, and Kung Fu is stressing that the game will be “Unauthorized. Uncensored. Uncompromising.” To that end, the game is brutally violent, and has extreme finishing moves, most of which would be illegal in any ring. Crushing heel stomp to the face? There are also leg breaks in the game, which we got to see in action. It’s not for the faint of heart–seeing a fighter’s limb sticking out at an uncanny angle–but it happens in real life, so it’s in the game.

The brief gameplay we were treated to showed two fighters squaring off with punches and kicks that looked satisfyingly real. Takedowns and pins were there as well, putting fighters into groundfights and showing how you can struggle out of a hold. Sounds were temporary, and because this is an early pre-alpha build of the title, not everything was finished. So we were missing the enjoyable *whump* sounds of a fist hitting meat. There were satisfying sprays of sweat and blood, however, and plenty of bone-crunching attacks.

Supremacy MMA doesn’t have a release date yet, but it looks like it will deliver compelling storytelling through satisfying gameplay that straddles the line between simulation and arcade. Plus, you get to break people’s legs. Count us in.

The reboot craze continues as yet another 80′s franchise has been rescued from bargain bin purgatory. Police Academy, the venerable comedy series, which spawned seven movies will soon return in an all-new incarnation. Oh, but don’t worry you hardcore “Police Academaniacs” (yeah, I made that up…I think,) Paul Maslansky, the producer behind all of the original films will return to help oversee the project and make sure it lives up to the original’s integrity. (Am I really typing this?)

As some may recall, (since six sequels tends to dilute a series’ original premise,) 1984′s first Police Academy film portrayed a city in crisis and in desperate need of Police recruits. The newly-elected Mayor then mandates that the local Police Academy welcome new recruits from all walks of life, attracting a healthy mix of the most zany screwballs ever. Of course, that group of screwballs was led by Carey Mahoney, played by the one and only Steve Guttenberg, who was kind of “sentenced” to join, and was solely devoted towards getting himself kicked-out. Here’s the catch: They’re not allowed to kick him out! Thus, comedy history was forever changed….sort of. (And he did it, no less, rocking a wife-beater and a pair of Daisy Dukes.)

Details on the reboot project (i.e. casting and direction) are still scarce, however, according to Maslansky:

“It’s going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV,” Maslansky said. “It’s going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It’ll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we’ll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme.”

Rose-colored glasses aside, the Police Academy brand definitely has nostalgia as its biggest ally. Frankly, the substance of the films’ jokes themselves do not stand the test of time, and in some cases, are painfully bad. However, they were extremely popular. The first film, which was a huge hit for Warner Bros., grossing over $81 million, was more of a conventional crude, R-Rated 80′s romp, filled to the brim with curse words, sexism, racial slurs, and full-frontal nudity. Each subsequent sequel was downgraded, with part two being PG-13, to eventually settling on a family-friendly PG rating for the rest of the series. The franchise even spawned a cartoon series with its own line of toys. Of course, it would eventually go out with a whimper, as the box office figures took incremental hits for each film, until its last, 1994′s Mission to Moscow grossed a laughable $126,247.

Ignominious end aside, it is possible that this could be something worthwhile. The basic, stripped-down formula does leave things open to updates that would give it relevancy. Plus, good casting could also help make this film into something that might be worth some excitement. It wouldn’t even be that hard with the pool of capable contemporary comedy stars made up of the likes of Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, etc.

The comedy movie genre is in kind of an awkward state at the moment. They’re either too ironic and hipster-esque or just plain formulaic garbage. This project could fall flat on its face, but it could also serve as a nice reminder of a time when comedies, while crass, lowbrow, and disposable, were more than plentiful and just pure, mindless fun.

Source:g4tv.com

A couple in Korea (Kim Yoo-chul, 41, Choi Mi-sun, 25) reportedly let their real-life child starve to death while they were taking care of a virtual child in a video game.

The parents would spend up to 12 hours at a shot in internet cafes, playing free-to-play Korean MMO Prius Online where you raise “Anima” children. While gaming, they would leave their three-month-old baby behind at home to fend for itself. Newborns are notorious for being bad at fending for themselves, even if you leave out a bowl of kibble, so their child died of malnutrition. There are no words for how terrible those parents are.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” Chung Jin-won, a police officer in Suwon, the Seoul suburb, told the Yonhap news agency. “They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

My confession: I have neglected my real child in favor of my virtual one.  Before you call child protective services on me, let me tell the story: A couple weeks ago, I was immersed in Heavy Rain; It was my kid’s bedtime, and I said to my wife, “Honey, do you mind putting him to bed. I’m in the middle of this… it’s for work.”

The very next scene in the game was the one where Scott Shelby is feeding and changing the diaper of a baby, and I realized that I was literally passing up interacting with my real child to put a diaper on a fake one. It was a bit freaky…but unlike the couple in Korea, my wife was putting my kid to bed, and it was only like 10 minutes as opposed to many hours, so it’s completely different, but still…freaky, right?

BTW: Raising a real child is harder than a video game child by about the factor that playing a real guitar is harder than playing Guitar Hero, but leveling up is a lot more rewarding.

Source:g4tv.com

Sega and Platinum Games debuted their new project, Vanquish in the trailer above. While completely cooler than the other side of the pillow, like many debut/teaser trailers, there was no in-game footage to be seen. To remedy the situation Platinum Games released the first screenshots of the title featuring plenty of guns and motion blur (which typically means awesome firepower and action… hopefully).

Vanquish is headed by Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba, the minds behind famed titles such as: Resident Evil series, Devil May Cry, Dino Crisis seres, God Hand and more. Sounds like a recipe for success, here’s hoping.

Source:g4tv.com