The first time I saw Asura’s Wrath it was a trailer of an angry cyborg man punching the continent sized finger of a giant cyborg space Buddha. It was then and there that I knew no matter how it turned out; even if it were the worst game ever made I would have to play it.
So, my friends and compatriots, Mass Effect 3 is less than a month away, and not too long ago, the demo dropped for the Playstation 3 version. Up until this point, there was a game that you could play on the Mass Effect website that would allow you to download the Xbox demo, but now that it has hit console wide, I thought that I would give my impressions on what I thought of each of the parts, and then some general thoughts.
The demo itself is broken into two main parts, which I found to offer two pretty differing moods, yet each of these moods seemed to have a unique enough feel as to where they were each amazing pieces of a product that will be very entertaining. For the first part of the demo, it opens up with Commander Shepard on Earth, as you are quickly thrust into a heated talk with a very councilesque Earth Alliance. Without ruining too much, things quickly start to spiral out of control, and you are thrust into a pretty engaging conflict. One thing I noticed in the demo was that there were a few spots where the frame rate dropped a little, but these did not seem to deter the gameplay. The last scene of this first part had a heavy Gears of War vibe to it, which really got me interested for the second part.
In the wake of Twisted Metal we now have the first decent looking independent car combat game on its way, and this one is exclusive to PlayStation Network.
Bioware announced today on Twitter that the multiplayer portion of the Mass Effect 3 demo, which became available on Tuesday, is now open to everyone. The cooperative multiplyer access was originally scheduled to go public on Friday (2/17), but with all the positive feedback they’ve been getting it’s not surprising they decided to make it available to all a day early.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is perhaps one of the biggest (and most certainly ambitious) games to be released in 2012. Although it had been in production for a very long time (the title screen has a copyright of 1997-2012), there were enough big names behind it as to where the hype regarding the game was justified. In addition to being produced from a studio ran by former MLB pitcher Curt Shilling, the game garnered such names as Ken Rolston (of Elder Scrolls IV fame), RA Salvatore, and Todd McFarlane, just to name a few. Now that the game has finally been released worldwide, I can finally say that while Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a good game, I do not think that it necessarily transcends the genre in the way that, say, something like Skyrim did.
Those who were fans of Oblivion will find quite a few of the same trappings in Reckoning (because of the length of the title, I will now refer to the game simply as Reckoning), as the player will be running through a fantasy setting with the ability to do most of what was able to be done in Oblivion (such as lockpicking, looting, owning property, etc.). The gameplay itself is similar in a sense to something like Fable in that you are playing from a third person perspective, but where Reckoning differs is that you have a primary weapon, and a secondary weapon that are mapped to square (X on xbox 360) and triangle (Y). This means that instead of light and heavy, there are certain patterns that you have to do the button presses to in order to execute combos. By this, I mean that holding the square button and then releasing will let out a charged attack of the weapon type mapped to that button. There are multiple combos, but most of the time, I found myself just mashing the button, as that seems to be the best tactic. There are three main trees that you can put points into, which follow the basic rouge, mage, and warrior path lines, but because it doesn’t really force you into any certain style, you will come across quite a bit of loot that you either cant use or have not use for (because it corresponds to another class). In addition to the class trees, you can put points into more general skills, such as Blacksmithing or Stealth, but, if you want a pointer, you should definitely max out Sage crafting, as maxing this out allows you to craft Health Regeneration gems which you can add to your armor or weapons which will help you immensely.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is perhaps one of the biggest (and most certainly ambitious) games to be released in 2012. Although it had been in production for a very long time (the title screen has a copyright of 1997-2012), there were enough big names behind it as to where the hype regarding the game was justified. In addition to being produced from a studio ran by former MLB pitcher Curt Shilling, the game garnered such names as Ken Rolston (of Elder Scrolls IV fame), RA Salvatore, and Todd McFarlane, just to name a few. Now that the game has finally been released worldwide, I can finally say that while Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a good game, I do not think that it necessarily transcends the genre in the way that, say, something like Skyrim did.
Those who were fans of Oblivion will find quite a few of the same trappings in Reckoning (because of the length of the title, I will now refer to the game simply as Reckoning), as the player will be running through a fantasy setting with the ability to do most of what was able to be done in Oblivion (such as lockpicking, looting, owning property, etc.). The gameplay itself is similar in a sense to something like Fable in that you are playing from a third person perspective, but where Reckoning differs is that you have a primary weapon, and a secondary weapon that are mapped to square (X on xbox 360) and triangle (Y). This means that instead of light and heavy, there are certain patterns that you have to do the button presses to in order to execute combos. By this, I mean that holding the square button and then releasing will let out a charged attack of the weapon type mapped to that button. There are multiple combos, but most of the time, I found myself just mashing the button, as that seems to be the best tactic. There are three main trees that you can put points into, which follow the basic rouge, mage, and warrior path lines, but because it doesn’t really force you into any certain style, you will come across quite a bit of loot that you either cant use or have not use for (because it corresponds to another class). In addition to the class trees, you can put points into more general skills, such as Blacksmithing or Stealth, but, if you want a pointer, you should definitely max out Sage crafting, as maxing this out allows you to craft Health Regeneration gems which you can add to your armor or weapons which will help you immensely.
As with Fallout 3 and the delayed Xcom, Syndicate is yet another property brought back and re-designed to appeal to a new wider audience.
