April 29 Marked

It is time to celebrate as our beloved Gran Theft Auto IV has been given a released date! That magical number is April 29th! Yes, this year! So rumours of it being released at the end of this year or next is false. Aren't you just glad? Let us all celebrate this special occasion by getting ourselves some hot coffee (if y'know what I mean).

God of War PSP

Ready yourself with another God of War? March is coming and we will see the release of Chains of Olympus on the PSP but for those of you who are just too eager to know more about the game, Sony has released a video trailer on their blog. As usual, you don't have to go that far to watch it, we'll embed it for you right below. Enjoy!

From Crackle: God of War Chains of Olympus January trailer

Resistance 2, 60 players

Word has been out and around that Game Informer has world exclusive info on Resistance 2, the first ever news on the upcoming sequel to the PS3's launch title. A lot of information has been spreading around on the Internet and if you have any, please leave a comment and share with us. I haven't seen the magazine myself. But I'll share what I've found out so far.

Resistance 2 aims to have a lot of online support. It has two story modes, the usual single player and a co-op mode which will support two player offline and eight online campaign. Outside the campaign modes, online multiplayer will support up to 60 players per server (and no, that's no typo), beating Warhawk as the most player per server. In terms of the story mode, it's not clear whether they will have two separate stories for single player and co-op modes but hopefully, they will.

Resistance 2 is aiming for an Autumn 2008 release date.

DMC4 Opening Cinematic

2008 is here and 2007 is long gone. Words can only express so much of what we went through last year. Did I just call 2007 'last year'? Wow! I'm starting to feel the change now. My whole body's tingling. Spider-sense is ... ANYWAY, we've got polls coming up now that 2007 is over, so check back with us to vote for your favourite games of 2007!

Now before you go, check out the opening cinematic of DMC4. Again, Happy New Year!

Brugamers Review: Mass Effect

It’s an action RPG in same vein as BioWare’s past effort, but more streamlined than I care to remember from the last game. Exploration, traversing worlds is fun, choosing the things to say in conversations trees opens up the option whether to be a bad ass or a boy scout – this game encourages you to make your own decisions.

The story might not be original, but to an extent it is quite entertaining in a lot ways, it’s along the lines of Battlestar Galactica episodes added with some other sci-fi fodder. It won’t win any awards, but it will make up for some really interesting story and makes you want to go on further just to delve into the mysteries of Mass Effect’s universe.

Some lags in the framerate during heated skirmishes but it won’t hamper the overall experience of the game. My only complaint is the flipping controls while driving Mako (the vehicle you use while traveling to other planet) add to the non-existent explanations on how to control the vehicle, this thing is definitely no Warthog. Fortunately, you only really have use the Mako on a few of the main missions, so it can be tolerated.

30 hours plus of gameplay. A set of interesting characters to interact with, beautiful worlds to traverse as well as equally sweet graphics and with the game setting itself up for a sequel, I think we can expect a lot from this game in the future.

Brugamers Review: Brave Story.

Review: in less than 100 words!

With the lack of great RPGs for the PSP out there this game breathes a refresher, and its just as good. Everything about this game screams typical RPG fare, but when you're on the go, this game will hold your candle. Battles are fast and addictive and with no load times during the fights. The story is nothing to write home about in the beginning, but as you traverse further on, you'll begin to love the beautiful world of Vision and the characters in it. The graphics are up to PS2-like quality, its smooth and almost no hint of slowdown. Despite the ugly cover, any RPG fan should at least have a go with this game, 25+ hours of good gameplay can't be all that bad right?

p/s I doubt that was 100 words.

Still A Bit In The Dark

Dark Sector has been around for quite some time - even before the existence of next-gen consoles. It set itself a PS3 game years ago and seems to stay put even in the long journey. Now that the PS3 is out for almost a year, Dark Sector has yet to show its true potential.

If anyone's been keeping up with the next-gen console developments, they'll also have seen the development and huge changes in the gameplay and environments of Dark Sector. Here's a trailer to show how it looks like now and what they promise to be once Dark Sector is released.

Halo 3 Goes NASCAR

Check it out! Halo 3 will go NASCAR. Yes, that race where cars just go round and round in circles for long hours. God knows why people are into it. Anyway, a Halo 3 branded NASCAR will be racing on the track on September 23rd by some dude who at this moment isn't really that important to us Bruneians to begin with anyway. But the idea of a Halo 3 car zooming around sounds kinda cool. No? Guess not. I would rather much see an army truck or helicopter with a Halo 3 brand on it. Well, who knows?

Long Lines for FFVII PSP

Japan saw the release of FFVII: Crisis Core two days ago. With it was also the release of the limited edition package where only 77,777 of them were made. Nice number don't you think? The package includes a PSP slim, specially numbered with an artwork at the back by Tetsuya Nomura, Final Fantasy earbuds and a Buster Sword cellphone strap. Not entirely impressive but having a limited edition PSP sounds good enough to me.

Some bloke at Wired.com wrote his encounter in Japan with the whole long lines and stuff where he found himself at number 551 behind a pack of 'homeless gamers'. Probably those who were camping out.

World War Flying

Blazing Angels wasn't much of an interesting game when I first tried it but it seems like the up-coming Blazing Angels 2 looks a bit more promising. Dropping the story line and favouring more of an arcade feeling, Blazing Angels 2 might just be very interesting and may just separate itself from other world war games. Check out the following preview.

A '2' in Gaiden

Ah~ yes, Ninja Gaiden. The game that can be fun and frustrating at the same time, yet very rewarding. Although, I haven't touched Sigma because of Oblivion but I know it will be a great adventure once I do.

Let's forget about Sigma for awhile and aim at a new Ninja Gaiden. Yes, finally, Ninja Gaiden 2 has been announced and will be exlusively for Xbox 360 next year. Check out the teaser trailer below.

Heavenly Release

Heavenly Sword is finally here followed by a lot of great reviews! Play Magazine – 10/10, Game Pro Magazine – 4.5/5, Game Informer Magazine – 8.75/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine – 8.33/10, GameZone.com – 8.8/10, and 1Up.com - 8/10.

One thing I like, and something that I realise and like about Heavenly Sword graphics, is what 1up had to say about it - "Heavenly Sword’s visuals are arguably the best the system has seen to date. I can’t talk up the graphics enough — not only are the characters and environments incredibly well detailed, but there’s very little of that typical (and easily abused) “next-gen gloss” applied to them, so you get a much cleaner-looking game than fare like Gears of War or Virtua Fighter 5.”

I saw how great the graphics were from GoW and VF5 but they were too shiney. I was waiting for a game that had good graphics but less glossier. Came the Heavenly Sword demo and I saw what I've been wanting from a game graphics.

Anyway, looks like I'll have to look for extra money this month. Anyone wanna buy my copy of Gundam and some old PSP games?

13 Minutes of FarCry

I wasn't big on FarCry when it came out. I didn't like the change of environment where it took the FPS genre then. Then, a lot of shooters started to follow its direction. Still not my favourite, still love war shooters, but to this day, I've learned to try new things in gaming. I mean, Oblivion has obviously become an all time favourite game.

Anyway, went to dig out old liepzig news and totally missed out on this 13 minutes video of FarCry 2.

All Unreal

Have you heard of Unreal Tournament? Okay, I'm kidding. Who hasn't. Anyway, I don't know if you guys keep up but UT3 has updated their website with hi-res screens and all the videos you need to know about the game. I suggest you check it out if you are an FPS fan. And believe me, if you are, you'd have played UT. And checked out the developers walkthrough video I posted awhile back.

Oh, I also uploaded 28 screens here.

Horror Playing

I love horror movies. Even moreso, I love horror games. Resident Evil was only good on its first game. The second one wasn't too bad. Fatal Frame was okay. Alone in the dark, Clock Tower, Obscure, Forbidden Siren... they're like been there, done that kinda thing. Doom... that was a different kind of horror. It was fun though. See, I love horror. I feed on it. It's like I need it. When I played the latest Doom, I turn off the lights just so I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand. But I haven't seen any good horror flick, be it movies or games, for years. Hell, that Thai movie, Shutter, everyone talked about and said it was scary made me laugh (but only because Thai language is funny).

That was kind of a long introduction. Anyway, I meant to tell you that the game that always make me keep coming again and again is Silent Hill (except for the fourth one - didn't like that so much). Silent Hill rocks. And here are two Silent Hill 4 gameplay vids I'd like to share. The second one shows the transformation between the two worlds in real time. Check it out!

LAIR: Just Graphics

I've been reading reviews on Lair everywhere and so far, they haven't been really nice - apart from graphics and sound. Seems like Lair isn't that much of a game but for the sake of collection, I'd get my hands on it just for the graphics. I probably won't have the time to play it what with the time I'm spending on Oblivion and work. Heck, I haven't even touched Ninja Gaiden Sigma since I bought it over a month ago.

In anycase, just to warn you guys that if you are looking forward to spend that money on a good game, don't get Lair. Spend it on Warhawk retail instead. I'm getting Lair for two different reasons.

Halo 3 is Gold

Halo 3 has gone gold! The wait is almost over. Now all we have to do is wait the release in September. Of course, by 'we' I meant you people with the 360s. I, on the other hand, am thinking of getting myself a new 360. But with Warhawk getting some good press and a heck of a lot of addicted players, plus with Heavenly Sword and Lair releasing in September as well, should I be investing in another 360?

We'll see. I can wait for Halo. As much as I used to be in love with it, it's just that. Used to. I realised I loved Battlefield over Halo when I started playing Battlefield a few years back. Warhawk gives that same Battlefield feeling.

Anyway, Halo 3. Will it live up to its hype?

Wet Trailer

Something else I wanted to share that I saw last week (or was it earlier this week?). Wet is a game by Sierra, set to be released next year, which has a female lead character. Someone's challenging Lara and Nariko.

Warhawk: Choices, Choices

Warhawk is online! And I'm broke and busy! I can't believe it. I've been waiting for this day for so long and then, I have no money and no time? Well, not the the time matters since I've got no money to buy one in the first place anyway. And not that the money matters when I don't have the time to play it too. Oh God, the dilemma is killing me!

Anyway, less personal rants and more news - not that I've been doing a lot of those lately.

Right, I'm not here to blog about how good the game is since there are plenty of sites out there to find out the ratings (plus it's not like this is the first site you'd go to to find out if the game is good or not - AND I don't have the game yet) but I am here to warn you guys not to download the PSN version. Why? Because by downloading it from the store, Warhawk limits itself to the account that downloaded the game. Thus, those of you with multiple accounts or would like your siblings to play the game, heed my warning, do not download it. Get the retail version instead. Plus, you get a bluetooth headset. And others can use it too.

Unless ofcourse, you never wanted to to begin with.

Dynasty Warriors 6 Trailer

I've never really played Dynasty Warriors. Wait, that's a lie. Back in the PS2 days, I think I've played it once, not knowing what it was really about. I think that was Dynasty Warriors.

In any case, I've never touched one since, if 'since' ever was there in the first place. But I must say that the Dynasty Warriors 6 trailer intrigues me. Fighting endless amount of enemies in a battlefield looks kind of fun but can get old. Then again, the amount of enemies you get on today's console per screen differ far more than it used to be. Imagine seeing thousands of enemies on screen - how overwhelming is that?

Check out the trailer below.