GameGuide » 2010 » September
Posted by famousfive On September – 9 – 2010
Treyarch believe that Call of Duty: Black Ops’ Multiplayer was the most difficult game within the franchise to balance.
When speaking to CVG, Treyarch’s Community Manager Josh Olin said that it was a harder task to balance the game in comparison with previous Call of Duty titles.
With the introduction of CoD Points and rare but devastating super weapons (from Care Packages), he notes that it’s been a “much more difficult game to balance” but reassures us that the studio has “stepped up to the plate”.
He mentions that there’s a lot of stuff that contributes to the balancing worries which includes CoD Points and that “XP is always a tough thing to balance out”. Josh goes on to talk about how the introduction of currency means that they not only have to balance the weapons and perks but also the cost of them.
With previous games, Treyarch were working on multiple projects at a time, but now the whole studio is focused on just Black Ops, meaning that it’s ever so possible to balance the game despite how challenging it may be.
With a dedicated Multiplayer team since day one it has allowed them to “use their resources to make more than we’ve ever made before” but to also “really polish and balance it to the degree that it was necessary”.
Posted by famousfive On September – 8 – 2010
Activision has revealed actors Gary Oldman and Ed Harris as two of the main voices for characters in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Oldman will be reprising his role from Call of Duty: World at War, where he played Russian Red Army squad leader Viktor Reznov, and Harris is lending his voice to CIA operative Jason Hudson (said to be “one of the game’s main characters”).
Additionally, Batman film writer David S. Goyer is offering “script consultation and story development support” on Black Ops. Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia said of the announcement, “Their contributions have helped us to push the boundaries of our story telling and character development far beyond anything we have ever attempted before in the franchise.”
Hopefully this means we’ll understand what’s going on, unlike the mind-numbingly complex Modern Warfare 2. And hopefully It’ll mean that we actually care about what’s going on, unlike Modern Warfare 2, where only a small segment of the American population found any emotional attachment to the story-line.
Posted by famousfive On September – 8 – 2010
Posted by famousfive On September – 7 – 2010
Posted by famousfive On September – 7 – 2010
In Mafia II you get to play the role of the very likable Vito Scaletta. He’s a kid born in poverty who grew up watching his old amn drown his sorrows in a bottle and determined to make a better life for himself and his family. Unfortunately that better life gets off to a bad start thanks to the not so great influence of his best friend, Joe Barbaro. Joe’s idea of a better life begins with a smash and grab of a local jewelers, which he didn’t really plan, and forgot to tell Vito until it was too late to back out – and one that manages to get Vito snagged by the cops.
All of this in handily wrapped up in the opening scenes, and the first bit of game-play we get to, well, play, is a surprising start to a game about the Mob, as you find yourself skipping jail time in favour of joining the Army and jumping into Italy. It’s a fairly basic mission to kick off, and starting a game about your slow and steady climb in the ranks of the criminal underworld with a mission where you are the hero is a fantastic concept. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by famousfive On September – 7 – 2010
In this 11 minute long menu walkthrough, Donell Tucker and Chris Monfette talk about everything you can customize your character with to make it really your own and make it stand out in the crowd. This is the first video we’ve seen that covers this much of the menu screen. After covering the perks, which has not seen major innovative changes, they move on to how equipment and weapons are reordered. Besides new stuff, they are now categorized differently into three categories; Lethal, Tactical and Equipment.
Equipment
The new equipment features a Tomahawk, which will replace the throwing knife from Modern Warfare 2. Along with the good old Frag and the Semtex grenades, the Tomahawk completes the Lethal equipment category (mapped to the right bumper on the controller).
In the Tactical equipment category (mapped to the left bumper on the controller), we see a couple new and very interesting equipment. A couple we already know from previous Call of Duty’s; Willy Pete (smoke grenade), Flashbang, Concussion (stun grenade). More interesting though, are the added equipment like the Nova Gas canister, a grenade that impairs movement, blurs vision and causes damage over time. Another very interesting addition to this list is the Decoy, a grenade that will simulate gunfire and radar indicators on the mini-map of the enemy team. This can be extremely useful to lure someone in a trap. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by famousfive On September – 4 – 2010
The controversy that has been steadily brewing around the ability to play as the Taliban in Medal of Honor has gotten the upcoming shooter banned from military stores.
The Army and Air Force Exchange Services confirmed that no store located on an Army or Air Force bases will be able to sell the reboot. That ban includes 49 GameStops located across the continental U.S., and to all military bases worldwide.
In an email sent out to employees, GameStop said they will be pulling all marketing material relating to the game from those stores. Customers wishing to reserve a copy of Medal of Honor will be directed to an off base GameStop location. -1up
The only response to this kind of knee-jerk reaction is to slowly shake you head and wonder just what goes on inside the head of your average American. Please, anyone offended by the idea of ‘having’ to play on the side of the feared Taliban, just stop and engage your brain for a moment. Firstly, you don;t have to play this game. Secondly, playing this game, and running the risk of being on the Teliban side during an online game does not make you a terrorist. It does not mean you are sympathetic to their cause. It’s only a friggen game.
Sheesh.
Posted by famousfive On September – 2 – 2010
Put your hand up if you like mindless action games that involve killing hundreds of people. Right, every one who raised their hand can keep on reading, the rest of you bugger off and go read the latest Farmville news.
For a relatively new series – this is the second game – Kane & Lynch has a bit of a reputation. A rather controversial reputation. The key characters (namely Kane and Lynch) are probably two of the nastiest characters in the realm of video gaming, the first game was a basic run and gun with some variety such as doing over banks, but at it’s heart, a basic third-person action shooter that didn’t care if innocent people got in the way.
Kane & Lynch 2 (K&L2) takes the basic premise of it’s predecessor and narrows the focus down considerably. It’s now basically a run and gun cover shooter with not a heck of a lot in the way of variety when it comes to game play – though there are a couple of nice missions that manage to mix things up a bit. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Alphapocalypse On September – 1 – 2010
There isn’t a huge amount you can say about the new add-on pack for Red Dead. I guess one of the biggest additions is the new locations to wage battles over. Technically not new locations so much as locations previously not set up for multiplayer. They have all been tweaked to have more cover and guns. From the taste I got the balance was ok although by the time I found the sniper rifle on Blackwater the round was over, damn those roof top shooters.
They also add in new playable characters from the first Red Dead, they looked alright but a few of them had unfortunate clipping issues that might only be a problem when they are assuming the pose in the character select screen.
Finally the new weapon, the tomahawk, nothing really game changing but it’s always fun to have something new to throw at people.
All in all the first paid content seems a little weak, Sure doubling the multi-player maps is great and the new Achievements and Challenges give you something new to complete. I kind of expected this but I had my fingers crossed for some more co-op challenges or some other quirky side games.
Oh well, there is always next DLC
Posted by Alphapocalypse On September – 1 – 2010
Welcome to Monday Night Combat, the blood sport de jure of a corporate run future where clones battle against robots and clones alike. Once again the future looks pretty bleak if we are bringing back the coliseum but I guess a few thousand years doesn’t really remove the blood lust and self destructive appetite of the human race. This time the battlefield is a class based third person shooter with a healthy dose of tower defense thrown in for good measure.
The first time you fire up the game you get a crash course in playing as ‘The Assault’. The controls are all pretty standard for a run and gun shooter so if you played a shooter before you should pick it up nice and easy. Well it would be easy except for all the skills, development, and class interaction that take place.
It breaks down easy to start with, each of the six classes (Assault, Gunner, Tank, Sniper, Support and Ninja) has four ’stats’ each, killing things get you money which lets you upgrade the stats. There is a grey class stat which is the general aptitude of your clone the other three: blue, yellow and red are skills that can be used with a cool down. Each Classes skill helps define their role and include things such as flight, cloaking sprinting and dashing through to hacking turrets and air strikes. Read the rest of this entry »
