Dead Island (PS3, X360, PC): This is a game that I’m really excited about, it’s like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead came together and had a baby. The player takes on the role of one of four survivors stranded on a resort island that has been overrun with the living dead. It is a first person action game, just like Left 4 Dead and players can pick up weapons and combine them and upgrade their strength. The graphics are beautiful and the Island of Banoi is quite an impressive spectacle. Players can join each other’s games online (4 players max). Comes out on September 6th.

Resistance 3 (PS3 Exclusive): This FPS game picks up four years after the conclusion of Resistance 2 and the player steps into the shoes of Sentinel Joseph Capelli. The game takes place in an alternate version of the 1950’s in which America has been taken and destroyed by the brutal Chimeran alien race. In addition to the single player campaign, there will also be two-player split screen and two-player online co-op through the campaign. It also includes 16 online versus. PS3 owners will want to check this game out. Comes out September 6th.

Gears of War 3 (X360 Exclusive): It has been 18 months since the fall of the last human city and the war between the humans and locusts continues. Sad to say it, but this will be the last Gears game, but it looks like they’re going out with a bang. Includes a single player campaign and online versus modes, I got my hands on the beta and I was impressed to say the least, this is a must buy for fans of the series and newbies alike. Releases on September 20th.

Silent Hill: Downpour (PS3,X360): I’m glad to see that the Silent Hill franchise is going back to its roots. The past few games in the franchise have been mediocre, including onslaughts of grainy meat bags which hurl themselves at you. This game has a boost in graphics and story alike, the horror/thriller genre has had a dry spell for a while now on the consoles, and fans of the original games will want to check this game out. Comes out in October.

Batman: Arkham City (PS3,X360,PC): Sequel to the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Dark Knight is back with a vengeance out to kick some bad guy ass. Cat Woman is also a playable character in the single player story. Rocksteady has said that a lot has changed in this game, Arkham City is a whopping five times the size of Arkham Asylum, there is a wider array of characters in the story, and now there are interrogations (Splinter cell?). Comes out on October 18th.

Battlefield 3 (PS3,X360,PC): If I were ranking the games that I was looking forward to the most, Battlefield 3 would be at the top of the list. Boasting the Frostbite 2 engine, top of the line graphics, and the enjoyment of reducing a building to rubble with your weapons. I can’t really give any reason why you wouldn’t get this game, EA and DICE have really upped the ante this time around with another single player and competitive multiplayer with up to 24 versus online. Comes out October 25th, mark you calendar.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3,X360,PC): If this game is comes even close to its predecessor in quality and fun, then this is a must buy. A great RPG franchise already, this new addition to the series will hopefully live up to it’s franchises’ caliber. People who buy this can look forward to great DLC, which Bethesda is excellent with. This game releases on November 11th.

Honorable Mentions:
Uncharted 3 (PS3): November 1st
Forza 4 (X360): Fall
Mass Effect 3 (PS3,X360,PC): Unknown 2011
Star Wars Old Republic (PC): Unknown 2011
The Last Guardian (PS3): Unknown 2011
Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii): Unknown 2011

Backbreaker Vengeance

Major Nelson’s blog detailed several new games that will be arriving on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Most were already announced games, albeit without release dates or prices.

BackBreaker Vengeance
Half Minute Hero Super Mega Neo Climax
Galaga Legions DX
Deadliest Warrior: Legends

All are slated for release June 29, except Deadliest Warrior: Legends, which is July 6. All but BackBreaker Vengeance will cost 800 Microsoft Points, Vengeance will be a hefty 1200 Microsoft Points. However, these dates and prices are not set in stone and may be subject to change.

Source – http://majornelson.com/2011/06/28/coming-soon-to-the-xbox-live-marketplace-5/

Bit. Trip Saga, the compilation of all six of the Bit. Trip games released on WiiWare has gotten a release date. The collection, coming to a 3DS game retailer near you, will be in stores September 13th.

Additionally, the other compilation, Bit. Trip Complete, that was slyly talked about at E3, has received a release date of September 13th as well. It also includes all six WiiWare on a single Wii disc, with several additions. These include 120 new challenges, online leaderboards, new difficulty modes, an audio and art gallery, and a bundled soundtrack CD containing 18 full songs.

Source – Aksys Press Release

• “Toy Soldiers: Cold War” (Signal Studios/Microsoft Studios). Jump into the fray with playful ’80s combat action in “Toy Soldiers: Cold War.” Bring your favorite action toys to life and wage war against the red menace. Need backup? Call in a friend for co-op campaign action on the couch or over Xbox LIVE. Take a break from the main battle with Survival mode and playful minigames. When you beat your LIVE friends’ scores, they’ll be gunning to reclaim the top spot!
  

• “Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet” (Fuelcell/Microsoft Studios). This side-scrolling, 2-D, action-adventure game takes players on a journey through the curious Shadow Planet worlds, unique environments filled with twisted life, surreal ecologies, hostile creatures and environmental hazards. Players explore the depths of several interconnected themed areas, fighting swarms of enemies, battling bosses, solving mind-bending puzzles and acquiring power-ups to unlock new parts of the map.

• “Fruit Ninja Kinect” (Halfbrick/Microsoft Studios). The worldwide gaming phenomenon “Fruit Ninja” is now coming to Kinect for Xbox 360 in its juiciest form yet — YOU are the ninja! Your arms are now blades, and the battle against the world’s most delicious produce is just beginning. “Fruit Ninja Kinect” is an amazing evolution of the slice-em-up genre created by Halfbrick, utilizing next-generation precision power for the juiciest combat ever!

• “Bastion” (Supergiant Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment). “Bastion” is an action role-playing experience that redefines storytelling in games, with a reactive narrator who marks your every move. Explore more than 40 lush hand-painted environments as you discover the secrets of the Calamity, a surreal catastrophe that shattered the world to pieces. Wield a huge arsenal of upgradeable weapons and battle savage beasts adapted to their new habitat. Finish the main story to unlock New Game Plus mode and continue your journey!

• “From Dust” (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft). Discover a unique Modern God game in which nature is the star. “From Dust” is the latest original concept by Eric Chahi, visionary creator of “Another World.” Behold the beauty of a primitive world pulsing with life and face the might of nature. Beware the danger of a world that is constantly changing under your command. Control the destiny of a tribe struggling to survive and help it recover its ancestors’ lost powers. Immerse yourself in a world as exotically beautiful as it is dangerous. A universe where nature reclaims what is hers and you are your people’s only chance of survival.

Source – Major Nelson

This is the main paragraph that stands out:

“Explore a massive, multilayered world that seamlessly blends soaring exploration in a
sea of clouds with intense ground-based adventuring that blurs the line between the
main world and traditional Zelda dungeons. Link™ soars through the skies on the back
of a noble bird and dives beneath the clouds to the continent below in an epic quest
that lays the foundation for the events in the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time.”

So it seems Skyward Sword will be telling the events that lead up to Ocarina Of Time. Along with that information, the press pack comes with some hot new screenshots:

(Click on the thumbnails to see the picture, full size)

Microsoft IPs

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition

Microsoft confirmed Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition for November 15th. It will contain a remastered campaign of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, online co-op, and 7 classic multiplayer maps.

Fable: The Journey

A first-person adventure take on Fable was announced, specifically for Kinect. You use your arms to steer vehicles, cast spells, and attack enemies. It will be around in 2012.

Forza Motorsport 4

A release date was confirmed for October 11th. The game uses Kinect for gameplay as well as voice commands and head tracking. 16 player online support was also mentioned.

Halo 4

As the send-off for their press conference, Microsoft unveiled a trailer for Halo 4 involving Master Chief and Cortana. It is the first of a “new trilogy” of Halo games.

Dance Central 2

The most embarrassing Kinect game is back, complete with new multiplayer modes and a single player “campaign”. New songs will be added, as well as voice recognition.

Kinect Sports: Season 2

A bunch of folks, specifically the hilariously awkward “football guys”, demonstrated Kinect Sports: Season 2 at the press conference. It will offer voice controls and some new sports, like tennis.

Third Parties

Mass Effect 3

BioWare showed off voice recognition on their new game and confirmed Kinect support for gameplay. It is slated for early 2012.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Ubisoft demonstrated Kinect’s enhancements to Ghost Recon, voice commands for customizing guns, and confirmed Kinect gameplay.

Minecraft

A Microsoft executive briefly touched on how Minecraft will be available on the Xbox Live Arcade featuring Kinect support.

Ryse

There was no true gameplay footage for Ryse, a Kinect title from Crytek set in ancient Rome, the concept video looked impressive.

Dashboard Enhancements

Bing, YouTube, and a streaming TV service were all announced for the Xbox Live Dashboard. Pricing has not been discussed.

UFC Fights were also shown to be available through Xbox Live. You can place bets on the fighters with your friends in addition to watching the fights.

A new Kinect-based dashboard was also announced.

One of the most noticeable changes that will come with Cataclysm is the Classic zone changes. For the past 5+ years the original continents of Azeroth (Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor) haven’t seen much in terms of changes. With the new expansion, Blizzard is going to completely redesign Azeroth as we know it. Many areas will change dramatically from desert to lush forests and vice versa. The Barrens will be completely split in two and all the old towns will be destroyed. Players will have to re-familiarize themselves with the new towns and quest zones. In addition Blizzard is going to unlock areas that have been inaccessible to us thus far, such as Mount Hyjal in Kalimdor.

Worgen

Along with the new design will come two new playable races, both of which have been featured in the game many times already. Horde players will be able to play as a Goblin, while Alliance players will be able to play as a Worgen. Both races will have their own starting areas for levels 1-15. Worgens will start in Gilneas located in Silverpine Forest, and Goblins will start in a completely new area, on the Isle of Kezan. Almost all classes are available to both races; however neither can be played as paladins. The only other restrictions to classes are that Goblins will not be able to be druids and Worgens will not be able to be shamans.

Goblin

There are many other features in the Cataclysm expansion that are just as important to us WoW players. For instance Blizzard will be allowing flying mounts in Azeroth, but it is still uncertain as to what restrictions they intend to impose, if any. They are also going to create a leveling system for guilds based on new guild achievements. The new level cap will be 85 instead of the normal 10 additional levels. This is because they wanted to focus more on the end game material in addition to the reworking of the level 1-60 content. This includes new higher-level zones, eight new 5-player dungeons (both normal and heroic) and 4 new 10- and 25-player raids.

One feature I am excited about as are many other players is that Blizzard will also be making more classes available for each race, such as the Dwarf Shaman. To find out more about the class combinations that will be available I have provided a chart below.

Click the chart for a larger view.

In addition to this, there will be some major changes to each class. Blizzard intends to change some classes talent trees dramatically whilst others not so much. If you would like to know more about a particular class or any of these changes click here.

And finally, for those of you who enjoy learning new professions, Blizzard will be creating a new secondary profession, Archeology. Not much is known about the profession other than it will include collecting and using artifacts from ancient races within Azeroth. It will also be important to the new character progression feature called the path system. This system will be a new way to gain talent points through questing, raiding and completing other objectives within the game.

In my experience, most expansion packs are created to add some new content to games without changing the game dramatically. With all these new features calling Cataclysm an expansion pack seems like an under exaggeration. It should really be called WoW II. Although I have not been a WoW player long enough to experience the release of any of their expansion packs, I believe that this one will be Blizzard’s greatest yet. If you would like to know more details about these changes you can find them on WoW’s Cataclysm website.

[originally published on April 22, 2010]

Some of you may know that right now, Lego Universe is in its beta phase, and is currently running a closed, invitation only preview of the game. I was fortunate enough to be invited into it. And because I love you guys so much, I’ve decided to give you an insight into Lego Universe. This is my journal of my adventures into a brand new MMO! Let’s just hope my PC doesn’t brick, eh?

The Venture Explorer and Avant Gardens

It wasn’t a smooth start I’m afraid, it booted in the wrong resolution and was quite laggy to start. But after some technical tweaks, it was looking great, despite a wonky frame rate. The character creation is versatile but simplistic, great for a game about a kid’s toy and I’ve heard that it will let you buy and order your own character in real life! Nice! The graphics aren’t that great, sadly. They’re a bit blocky (ho ho ho, ugh…) and screen tear is all too common, but then again this is a beta and also an MMO, it was destined to never look great. Still, what’s here is at least colourful and suitable, it looks like Lego, and I suppose that’s the point.

The opening levels I was given access to include a basic tutorial on a spaceship called “The Venture Explorer.” The only interesting part of which really is the “build” mechanic. Essentially you use “imagination” (read: Magic or Mana from World of Warcraft) to build objects you can interact with (and by build I mean hold shift until the object is finished, not actually build). There was also an interesting area where you could custom build your own rocket. Although this was basically selecting 3 out of the 6 pieces they had given me to assemble a rocket from premade parts, not quite the imagination overload I was expecting. The tutorial area itself was, well, spacey. The inside of a rocket ship with a sort of glass outer shell and some mechanical looking platforms filled out the area. And a view outside of a seemingly endless universe was shown. It looked pretty nice from an artistic standpoint, and is obviously a preview of the space levels that will come later in the game.

After the tutorial I was whisked off to Avant Gardens, a small grassy battlefield that was very enclosed and only really had one path. A set of very basic quests were handed out, things like “Kill 5 Enemies” and “Build a Wall” that lead to some slightly more interesting affairs such as “Race up the Monument” and “Construct Turrets out of your fallen enemies”. The combat has a closer resemblance to your standard action game rather than an RPG, you click, the character hits, the enemy dies; simple. Perhaps a bit too simple really, there’s only one method for killing enemies and despite an option to buy new weapons I couldn’t tell you how they were any different from the standard sword you’re given. There’s a much stronger emphasis on exploration and platforming than battling however. One area of Avant Gardens involves climbing Assembly Monument, a giant statue of a Heroic Lego man brandishing a sword fighting an Evil Lego man brandishing a scepter. There was a considerable amount of platforming involved. Three different branching paths are laid out before you, each one expecting you to use precision and timing to make it up to the top, as well as building a few mechanisms. Strangely, however, there is no leveling system, at least not yet. It looks like there might be a disabled one, but I never received experience or even loot from fallen enemies, instead I was given money and perhaps some health or imagination restores. Completing quests usually awards new clothing or money for your Lego Man, both of which only effect him superficially. There’s no bonus for wearing the armor or buying a new hat. If this is the first MMO without a leveling system, well, that’s kind of impressive, but it may be a bit too limiting to people expecting an addictive race for gear.

Building with Legos has never been so complicated.

I also had a look at making my own models in an area of property I now “own” according to the game. The idea is that you can make your own house and various things to go in and around it. Building stuff with bricks you’ve collected by finishing missions and killing enemies. It’s even been said that you can have your creations sent to you on order, just like your character; so the prospect of building should be great fun! The problem is that the building mode is so frustratingly difficult to operate (at present) that building anything is an exercise in aggravation. Blocks won’t go where you want them to. I can’t figure out how to rotate and buttons don’t do what you tell them; it’s all rather sloppy. Not only that, but the parts I was given were useless at making anything at all. I managed to make a door… thing with a barrier attached to the top. Not really the dream home I was thinking of… Still, I imagine that this will be the alternative to the leveling system. And while I like the idea of battling through to make the ideal place to live, the current building mode is far too difficult to operate, a note out of “Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts” should be taken, and bricks should lock into an invisible grid.

There are of course, a few problems in the beta. But if they make it to the final version I’ll be horrified and amazed. One such problem was that I ended up doing the same quest 6 times in a row. It was only after I received an email from the Lego Universe team did I discover that this was intentional. It seems you can repeat certain quests to get more money. I wish they had told me sooner; I thought that I had to do it several times to progress and as a result wasted plenty of time trying to finish an unfinishable quest. I can only hope in the full game these quests will come with an explanation.

As it stands, I currently can’t leave the first world as the beta has restricted my access. But fingers crossed that in the future I can tell you about the rest of the game, and maybe even a little about the different classes that Avant Garden has hinted at. The game is incredibly simple, but the prospect of the various worlds (Pirate, Ninja, Space Ranger, Knights, Cowboys) all sound great and hopefully the difficulty will ramp up as I get further into the world. As an MMO though, I can’t see how teaming up with anybody could have or indeed would have helped. I beat this portion of the game on my lonesome. Other people proved more of a nuisance than nything; constantly killing things I also was trying to kill and building things I wanted to build. This is probably because the party system isn’t fully working yet, but regardless for an MMO, I felt like I wasting my time with these other players. There’s one section on the Assembly Monument where helping each other out can help a bit, but the goals are still completely doable one your own. I know; I did them that way. To anybody over the age of 12 frothing at the mouth for this game, I say this; lower your expectations. That might sound a little pessimistic but here’s the truth of the matter: this is a game aimed at kids. As a result, it is extremely basic and while it makes it easy to play, it sadly doesn’t make it all that enthralling. You certainly won’t be handing in your Night Elf for a Lego Man just yet. Although, that could all change. What will Nimbus Station hold for me? Will I get a class? Will I get a ranged weapon or even a magic spell? Who knows, stay tuned to Zippy Gamer to find out!

Brink

Bulletstorm

Badass

The Lord of the Rings Online

Rock of Ages

Ship Simulator Extremes

Two Worlds II

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online

I’m a nerd, albeit a bit of a frugal one. I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It’s science-fiction enough for me to love the setting, but has enough fantasy elements to keep the fantasy nerd inside of me happy. However, collecting those little figures to fight other little figures is an expensive endeavour. The Warhammer 40k universe found its greatest video game success with Relic’s strategy games (I consider the original Dawn of War, and its expansions, to be the best RTS games ever, sadly I haven’t tried Dawn of War II yet). The developers of Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium Online, Vigil Games, are a bit tight-lipped on this game. The trailer is obviously from the perspective of the Imperial forces in the game. Vehicles make an appearance, presumably they will be player controlled. And the scale of the game seems to be quite huge, with walkers towering over ground forces.

Although Tanner has the ability to roam freely around the streets of San Francisco, this latest installment of Driver will focus on the movie style car chases. Reportedly, there will be upwards of 100 vehicles to chose from, and plenty of road to keep the chases flowing. There will also be a large amount of classic vehicles thrown into the action, and this should make for some never before seen chases.

This latest version of Driver will also include the option to play online. This mode will offer fans some pretty exiting chases as well. The screenshots from Driver: San Francisco detail some excellent graphics, and these new added features will offer some unbelievable game play. Driver: San Francisco will be available for Playstation 3, X-box 360, Wii, PC, and Mac.