Sony announced today that PlayStation Plus content would start rolling to PlayStation Plus subscribers on a bi-weekly schedule. Since the service began last month, subscribers have had access to exclusive discounts, and free access to a select few PlayStation Network games. One of the perks to PlayStation Plus that Sony has been advertising has been the Game trial.
Arguably the best racing game last year, Dirt 2, is getting another installment. I don’t find this too surprising but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m incredibly excited for Dirt 3. In the teaser trailer, they don’t reveal too much apart from the fact that we will be traversing many different environments. You can view the trailer below, it’s quite fantastic if I may say so myself.
When you first see Earthworm Jim HD, coming to PSN on August 4, the first thing you might notice is how much it resembles the quirky cow-dotted landscape you remember. All of the game levels from the 16-bit Super Nintendo game are there. However, a side-by-side comparison of the new Earthworm Jim to its predecessor serves as a reminder of how far graphic imagery has come. You will laugh at how pixilated the original looks now.
Back in late June, NaturalMotion and 505 Games released Backbreaker. A game based solely off its Euphoria feature. A feature that made tackles much more realistic, no tackle animation was the same. I thought the system worked fine. Great even. But everything built around that tackling system was done so poorly, it mitigated the Euphoria system’s impact.
Hey, StarCraft. It’s been awhile. 12 years later and here we are. More than anything, StarCraft II is one incredible statement, a statement that suggests that, after all this time, after 12 years, the gameplay that defines the StarCraft series hasn’t aged one bit. There’s nothing about StarCraft II that pushes any gameplay boundaries. There’s nothing about StarCraft II that feels like its taken bits and pieces from other real-time strategy games. Through and through, StarCraft II is exactly the sequel we’ve all come to expect and it’s wonderful.
So it looks like Master Chief’s first stop after his recent cryo-nap is on the Atari 2600. Ed Fries, a programmer, decided to use 4K of precious memory to create Halo 2600 which he debuted at the Classic Gaming Expo. With the Halo theme clearly playing in all its signal note glory, a Halo fan cannot help but appreciate this.
For a game that the world has been waiting almost 13 years to see, Starcraft 2 hasn’t really redefined it’s gameplay mechanics. That’s not to say the game isn’t fun though. It does exactly what most Starcraft fans want it to do, it incorporates balance, story, and visuals in a manner that very few modern or even classic titles fail to achieve. It clearly isn’t perfect, there are still plenty of things that need to be ironed out, but given the time and dedicate record of Blizzard, expect most of those things to be addressed.
