The environments of Two Worlds IIPosted on Friday July 30th, 2010 at 2:02am by Destructoid
function getVideo() { var so = new SWFObject("http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf", "mplayer", "620", "375", "8", "#000000"); so.addParam("wmode","transparent"); so.addParam("swliveconnect", "true"); so.addParam("allowscriptaccess", "always"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("pid", "dest002"); so.addVariable("siteId", "357"); so.addVariable("videoId", "181041"); so.addVariable("file", "http://cms.springboard.gorillanation.com/xml_feeds_advanced/index/357/3/181041/"); so.addVariable("pageUrl", document.location); so.write("flashcontent_357_dest002_single_181041"); } getVideo(); Two Worlds was a game I was probably never going to like. Neither a fan of fantasy genres nor having the time and attention span for lengthy role-playing games, it just wasn't built for me. Nevertheless, I still kept eyeing it at the store whenever I went in because I have a tendency to do things which fight my nature. The sequel appears to be shaping up better than its predecessor and the team seems to be aware of the failings made there. I hope it's good but I know that I'd never play more than ten hours before something shiny distracted me. Just because I can't get excited doesn't mean you shouldn't. Are you willing to take a chance on this sequel fixing the mistakes of Two Worlds? NBA 2K11 soundtrack features Snoop Dogg, Ron ArtestPosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 6:06pm by Destructoid
Snoop Dogg loves 2K Sports' NBA 2K series -- so much so, in fact, that he has recorded an exclusive track, the "NBA 2K Theme," for NBA 2K11. But Snoop is only one of more than 30 artists who appear on the 27-song soundtrack for the game. Other highlights include Drake, Outkast's Big Boi, Kid Cudi, and Ron Artest. That's right -- the Los Angeles Lakers small forward, who released a 21-track rap album in 2006, has contributed a cut to NBA 2K11. I wonder if he thanked his psychiatrist for getting him the gig. In a nice move, 2K has included "Sirius" by The Alan Parsons Project, which you'll likely recognize once you hear it as the Chicago Bulls' theme -- after all, Michael Jordan is on the cover of the game. Hell, I despised the Bulls when Jordan was wrecking my Knicks in the '90s, but even I couldn't deny the catchiness of their entrance music. Check out the full track list after the jump. You can hear all those songs on October 5th, when NBA 2K11 launches for PS3, 360, Wii, PC, PSP, PS2, and iPhone. Impressions: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on PlayStation MovePosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 5:05pm by Destructoid
At a Sony press event in New York City last week, I was able to try out PlayStation Move for the first time. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 was among the games I played, and it was immediately impressive. Here's how it works. You grasp the Move wand like a golf club, and use the face buttons to select a club. The big button in the center of the wand, simply named the "Move button," serves the function of the O button in the regular game -- it zooms the camera to the landing area of your shot. When zoomed in, you hold the trigger and point the wand at the screen to move your shot target left or right. Once your target is set, you tap the Move button to go back to your behind-the-player camera angle for the shot. Then you aim the wand straight down toward the floor and hold the trigger to "lock in" your shot. After that, you're ready to swing away. I spent part of my 4th of July weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC, where I played some golf for the first time in my life. I hooked most of my drives -- they veered off way to the left -- and that stroke was now evinced in PGA Tour 11 as well, thanks to PlayStation Move. My first few shots went so far leftward that I had to compensate by twisting my wrists to the right as I swung (and of course, I then ended up overcompensating). The point here is that Move works, and it works well. During my demo, I asked the EA Tiburon developer on hand if he felt that there was any appreciable difference between the experiences that Move and Wii MotionPlus offer. He said that they're essentially identical, except that the ergonomically shaped Move wand feels better in his hand -- to be specific, it feels more like a golf club to him -- than the Wii Remote. And of course, there's no comparison between the beautifully rendered high-definition environments on the PlayStation 3 and the 480p output of the Wii. Look for Move support to come to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 via a launch-window patch.
Trailer shows off batty Guitar Hero 'Quest Mode'Posted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 2:02pm by Destructoid
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Ninja Theory isn't in the spotlight as much as it used to be, and there's no denying that Enslaved: Odyssey to the West has less of a spotlight than Heavenly Sword did. According to the studio, however, this is a good thing. Without the pressure of being a PS3 launch developer, Ninja Theory is having a much better time. "I personally feel much more comfortable now we're lower profile. It's better to be the underdog so you can surpass expectations," explains boss man Tameem Antoniades. "I think all the hype surrounding PlayStation 3 wasn't particularly enjoyable for us, and the other reason I like to underplay things is that - despite what anybody says - on a creative project, you just never know if it's gonna work until it all comes together right at the very end." From what I played of Enslaved, it seems that the comfortable environment has paid off in spades. My ten minutes with Enslaved was several times more enjoyable than my several hours with Heavenly Sword, and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on the full game. If you know what's good for you, then pay close attention. Though I realize I just gave Ninja Theory the hype that it doesn't want. Oh well ... PS3 launch hype 'wasn't enjoyable' - Heavenly Sword dev [CVG] Explodemon coming to PlayStation Network in Q4Posted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 11:11am by Destructoid
We've not seen hide nor hair of Explodemon in ages, and I don't know why because this PlayStation Network title looks like a huge amount of fun. It's a comedic 2.5D action platformer and it's been announced to his in the fourth quarter of 2010. Basically, they're planning to have it out before the end of the year. That's annoyingly vague, but the game deserves to be mentioned so I'm taking the excuse. It's inspired by classic Japanese videogames, and has a slight taste of 'Splosion Man about it, as the main character uses the power of self-destruction to fight baddies and solve puzzles. It looks funny. I will buy it. Please be bringing it on! Nail'd soundtrack is very heavy metal indeedPosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 10:10am by Destructoid
function getVideo() { var so = new SWFObject("http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf", "mplayer", "620", "375", "8", "#000000"); so.addParam("wmode","transparent"); so.addParam("swliveconnect", "true"); so.addParam("allowscriptaccess", "always"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("pid", "dest002"); so.addVariable("siteId", "357"); so.addVariable("videoId", "180803"); so.addVariable("file", "http://cms.springboard.gorillanation.com/xml_feeds_advanced/index/357/3/180803/"); so.addVariable("pageUrl", document.location); so.write("flashcontent_357_dest002_single_180803"); } getVideo();As it stands, Deep Silver's and Techland's Nail'd is already pretty metal. I mean, it's a game called nail'd that drops the "e" because dropping letters is metal. It's also a name that evokes sexual intercourse, as well as violence, both things which are very metal. SOCOM 4 release pushed into 2011Posted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 8:08am by Destructoid
No SOCOM 4 for you this year; Zipper Interactive, the game's developer, has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 title has slipped into 2011. Dragon Age going 'Golem' with add-on this AugustPosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 7:07am by Destructoid
BioWare continues to show its crazy post-release support for Dragon Age: Origins this August, with a new downloadable add-on called "Golems of Amgarrak." Vanquish getting Casual Automatic and God Hard modesPosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 7:07am by Destructoid
Platinum Games isn't shy about crafting a punishing challenge, but the increasingly successful Japanese developer has a merciful heart under all the thorns. Just as Bayonetta had an Easy Automatic mode, balls-mental shooter Vanquish is getting Casual Auto for players who don't want to think. "Before we started work on it, I can’t say that I had high hopes; however, once we got it up and running, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was wrong," explains director Shinji Mikami. "Once you get your target on the enemy, the rest is easy as pie. I’m sure saying it that way makes it sound totally uninteresting, but when you actually give it a shot, the tempo it gives the game play will make you jump up and say, ‘Woohoo!’,” However, those who prefer to take it up a half step will be thrilled to know that God Hard mode can be unlocked, which presumably will be for the more masochistic gamers among us. Or God, I suppose. Vanquish’s Casual Automatic Mode Will Make You Jump And Say “Woohoo!” [Siliconera] Put yourself on the cover of Dead Rising 2 with pre-orderPosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 5:05am by Destructoid
Europe might be getting the shaft when it comes to their release of Dead Rising 2 not arriving until three days after we get it in the United States, but this might soften the blow a bit. Capcom is offering a very cool pre-order bonus for those who are being made to wait so long. If you pre-order your copy of Dead Rising 2 from Play.com, you'll receive a special code in your e-mail during the game's release week. Enter the code in at MyDeadRising.com, upload a photo and you'll receive a custom cover inlay featuring yourself! That's super-cool and, in my mind, beats out a lot of the junk marketing materials so frequently packaged in with games. Of course, it's no "Zombrex" edition (or even the European "Outbreak" edition -- that toy looks sweet) but still damn neat. The promotion is good for copies of the title on all platforms. So, just like an actual zombie apocalypse, it doesn't matter what your personal politics are since we're all going to just be lusting for brains in the end. Dead Rising 2 [Play.com via Playfront.de] Metalocalypse: Dethgame meets its own premature demisePosted on Thursday July 29th, 2010 at 2:02am by Destructoid
Konami had been all set to publish a game for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network based upon the popular Adult Swim cartoon, Metalocalypse. Announced at Comic-Con last year, it was nowhere to be found at E3. A subsequent failure to materialize for this year's Comic-Con caused Siliconera to get a case of curiousity and ask. Turns out that the game was unceremoniously canceled at some point in the last year. According to Konami, Adult Swim pulled the license and that was that. Well, that's a bummer. Metalocalypse: Dethgame was a brawler which put you in the shoes of a Dethklok roadie beating people up in the service of your Swedish metal masters. Or something. I've heard some rumblings that the product wasn't shaping up to be very good, so perhaps we've dodged a bullet here. Wouldn't want to besmirch the pristine name of Dethklok, after all. It’s Game Over For Metalocalypse: Dethgame [Siliconera via 1up] Go behind the scenes of Red Dead Redemption's soundtrackPosted on Wednesday July 28th, 2010 at 6:06pm by Destructoid
function getVideo() { var so = new SWFObject("http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf", "mplayer", "620", "375", "8", "#000000"); so.addParam("wmode","transparent"); so.addParam("swliveconnect", "true"); so.addParam("allowscriptaccess", "always"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("pid", "dest002"); so.addVariable("siteId", "357"); so.addVariable("videoId", "180597"); so.addVariable("file", "http://cms.springboard.gorillanation.com/xml_feeds_advanced/index/357/3/180597/"); so.addVariable("pageUrl", document.location); so.write("flashcontent_357_dest002_single_180597"); } getVideo();Red Dead Redemption is my current front-runner for Game of the Year, and frankly, I don't think anything else will eclipse it. Much of my love for the game stems from its stirring score, which Bill Elm and Woody Jackson composed. Rockstar has put out a four-and-a-half-minute featurette detailing the process by which Elm and Jackson put together the soundtrack and integrated it into the game, and as someone who's interested in music composition, I found the video fascinating. If you've played the game, then you've surely noticed certain musical motifs that correspond to particular environments and actions. A particular riff comes in when you saddle up on horseback, and a different sequence will join in if you start shooting your gun. The composers planned for this by creating musical "stems" as opposed to entire songs, and they composed the entire score in the key of A minor at 130 beats per minute to allow for the stems to be overlaid among each other. Even more interesting are the instrumentation and techniques used to create the music. Elm and Jackson utilized many period-specific instruments, such as jaw harps and harmonicas. There's an instance in the video of someone playing a trumpet into a kettle drum! Everything comes together to create a unique, situation-based soundscape in Red Dead Redemption, and you can learn about it by watching the video. Hooray? Another batch of free BF: Bad Company 2 mapsPosted on Wednesday July 28th, 2010 at 4:04pm by Destructoid
function getVideo() { var so = new SWFObject("http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf", "mplayer", "620", "375", "8", "#000000"); so.addParam("wmode","transparent"); so.addParam("swliveconnect", "true"); so.addParam("allowscriptaccess", "always"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("pid", "dest002"); so.addVariable("siteId", "357"); so.addVariable("videoId", "180573"); so.addVariable("file", "http://cms.springboard.gorillanation.com/xml_feeds_advanced/index/357/3/180573/"); so.addVariable("pageUrl", document.location); so.write("flashcontent_357_dest002_single_180573"); } getVideo();Just what we needed, more VIP maps for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Today marks the release of the fifth set of these, if you can believe that. As always, the maps themselves aren't new per se, but they have been tinkered with to work with alternate multiplayer modes. "White Pass" in Rush mode and "Nelson Bay" in Conquest mode (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) is what you're getting for free this time, assuming you still have one of those nifty VIP codes that are packed in with every new copy of Bad Company 2. At this point, I have to wonder how many more of these quick-and-dirty VIP maps DICE can pump out before we get something substantial -- like the upcoming Vietnam expansion. Because really, I'd much rather play (and pay for) that than download the current free offerings. Destructoid review: PlayOn streaming media softwarePosted on Wednesday July 28th, 2010 at 4:04pm by Destructoid
Our game systems do some video, but not quite enough, especially when you think about all of the awesome streaming internet content out there. Slowly but surely we're seeing console specific applications pop up on your PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, but it's not quite fast enough. Some of us want it now. I can't tell you how many people I've met that are dying to cancel their cable/satellite service and just watch streaming internet television on their living room TV. PlayOn makes this all possible. This PC application runs in the background and serves up all the internet video you could ever want to your game system of choice. And it does a very nice job of doing that. We put PlayOn through its paces for you in our full review. PlayOn is a very small application that quickly encodes and sends along your favorite video services from your PC, through your network, and onto your game systems. It's a PC only application, but I was able to get it to work perfectly fine on my Mac systems using Parallels with Windows 7. I'd imagine Boot Camp would also work well for my fellow Mac users.
Video services like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Amazon VOD and tons of others are listed under PlayOn's channels tab. Others include Pandora, ESPN, CNN, as well as many other web-ized television offerings. All you need to do is drop in your username and password for each service to enable streaming. Save, start your server, and then go switch on a game system. I tried both the PS3 and the Xbox 360, and they worked like a charm. I liked the PS3 best as the navigation seemed a bit easier. On the PS3 you'll need to hit the menu item under Video that searches for media servers. PlayOn's icon will appear, and by clicking on that, you'll get a folder-based view of all your enabled content. For example, by clicking on Hulu's folder, several subfolders would open up, even down to an alphabetical listing of all the shows on the service. In the Youtube folder, I was able to watch all of my uploaded videos, subscriptions and favorites. This experience was especially easy with the PS3 Bluetooth remote control. The Xbox 360 version is just as easy. Simply find PlayOn's served content under the Video Library of the Dashboard. There's also compatibility with many other non-gaming systems, if you're interested.
What impressed me most was the quality of the video. At first I wasn't sure how nice of a stream would come through my network, especially with only 1GB of RAM being allocated to Windows via Parallels. Thankfully, there were never any hiccups in the signal for any service I tried. If content was shown on the internet in a higher resolution, that would come through on my living room's 52" LCD perfectly fine, in HD. Some of the shows on CBS and Hulu looked very nice in HD. The performance of PlayOn is directly linked to how fast your setup is, and how you're networked between the two. I have a powerline ethernet connection between my Mac and my router, and this was more than enough. Of course, they recommend a 1.5 to 2.0 Mbps constant broadband download speed, which shouldn't really be an issue for most users out there.
As for the software itself, it's basically invisible. PlayOn is really just a little icon in your system tray. Double-clicking pulls up a settings box that lets you start and stop the server, tweak settings, add channels and even point to on-disc media files that you'd like to stream. The last function, called My Media, is in beta, and doesn't seem to work with every video file. It loved Quicktime and the like, but didn't play as well with some of the more specialized formats. I noticed that it requires a separate install of VLC Media Player to get going, so I'd think it would be able to play and encode anything. PlayOn is quite impressive. I really like the no-hassle installation and background running features. Once your computer is on, all you really need to do is turn on your game system to get video going. Yes, some of the systems have dedicated services for specific streaming outlets, but this is everything, all in one place. MediaMall's PlayOn is $39.99, but there's a free 14-day trial available on their webpage.
- Uncharted 2 title updating coming today - BioShock 2 patch for PS3, 360 detailed - Rumor: PS3 Firmware 3.41 improves sh*tty patching system - Ubisoft clarifies R.U.S.E. release date - Dungeon Siege 3 gets cinematic in debut trailer - Irrational teases game reveal with 'Icarus' website - Details emerge on MAG patch 1.07 - Be a soccer lifer in FIFA 11 - Rock legends/dinosaurs re-record tracks for Guitar Hero - Boba Fett is back in this Force Unleashed 2 trailer - THQ working on yet another WWE-based franchise - PS Move only supports Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition - Sony to report Q1 profit for PlayStation division - PS3 firmware 3.41 adds recommendations and...nothing else - More songs from Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock revealed |
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