Xbox 360

Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury Review

Anyone
remember that game Hard Corps: Uprising that came out a few months ago? You
know, that game that constantly gift wrapped your ass and handed it to you over
and over again. Well, you get a similar feeling while playing Bangai-O HD: Missile
Fury upon starting it up. This game is absolutely insane at first, and the
“Missile Fury” part of the title should be taken extremely literally. While early
experiences with this game are likely to turn off most players, there are
really only a couple things you need to learn in order to be able to have a lot
of fun with this game.

The Darkness 2 Teaser Trailer

So Nolan
North is apparently voicing Jackie in the sequel – that’s about all you can take
from this short trailer. Going by the voiceover, it seems Jackie has kept The
Darkness away since the first game and The Darkness isn’t too happy about it.
Hopefully
this means that the game will cover Jackie battling to control The
Darkness and the obvious problems that it’s going to cause, but we’ll have
to wait and see for any story details.

Outland (Xbox 360) Review

When first playing Outland, you can quickly tell there is
something missing in its unique visuals. The palate is limited to just a few
colors within the world and its inhabitants, including the main character
who is mostly in silhouette. After playing Outland, it’s safe to say that the “something
missing” also extends over to the gameplay.

The lacking visuals are interesting, though. Limiting the palate
to just a few colors makes what hues remain quite bold, and a quick glance is
enough to pull you in and have you test out the waters. Its lone, low-key
booth at PAX 2010 was fairly well occupied considering the title’s obscurity
because once you see the art style you think, “Hey, what’s this about?”

Gears 3 Beta Report: Volume 3

We’re at the
halfway point so far in the Gears 3 beta and hopefully tomorrow will see the
release of some new stuff. In the mean time, it’s time to discuss the maps
currently available and how best to play them to avoid as many brutal deaths as
possible. Let’s get to it.

Checkout:

By far the
most teamwork-orientated map in the beta, there is an insane amount of cover
and corners to hide behind to take advantage of the chainsaw and sawed off.
Don’t get too camp happy though because the digger launcher and sniper are on this map
and they can easily break a camp heavy setup. There are also two sets of
grenades on this map, which is something you should really take note of, and nade
plants don’t seem to be anywhere as common as they are in Gears 2.
That’s
something you can take advantage of; people aren’t anywhere near as
cautious as
they used to be regarding these. The golden rule of this map is teamwork
and if you’re communicating and working well with your team you’re
going to
do well on this map. Rifles are pretty dominant for anyone with a sharp
eye,
too.

Outland Demo Impressions

Recently a new XBLA title piqued my interest as I shuffled through the new releases. Actually, it wasn’t the title so much as the cover: a shadowy figure etched with glowing blue and red runes and wielding a massive sword. Outland has a style that borrows tiny bits from other hit games. While the description in the Marketplace says that Outland is “inspired by Prince of Persia” (and both were produced by Ubisoft), there’s very little similarity between the two games. Both heroes climb ledges and use a sword, I suppose, but then so do Link, Dante and BOTH Assassin’s Creed assassins, and none of those are even remotely similar games. But this game is…different.

More Need for Speed Runs to Consoles in November

After an early leak last Thursday, EA made an official
announcement on Friday that their next installment of the Need for Speed franchise is
arriving this November.

Titled Need for Speed: The Run, this installment expands
on the underground street racing theme that some of the past titles in the
franchise used, such as Underground and Most Wanted. However, you’re not just
trying to win races in some fictional city; the game’s main story mode is
actually a cross-country race from San Francisco to New York.

From Panzer Dragoon to Project Draco – History and a Look Ahead

Although a whole ton of folks bought themselves a Kinect since the fancy peripheral was released over six months ago, that’s one bus I haven’t jumped on yet. My DJ Hero turntable, PlayStation Move controller, and Street Fighter arcade stick will be glad to tell you my tales of buying peripherals that I use a few times and then relegate to collecting dust (I suppose I could include my Wii on that list as well). However the Kinect is so uninteresting to me that I haven’t even found it worthy of dust accumulation.

While Child of Eden looks gorgeous and is something I’m absolutely picking up, being the spiritual successor to Rez, there’s no way I can play it without a controller. Thankfully behind all the personal trainer and dancing titles on the horizon there’s one game that you may not have even heard of that could finally get me to go out and buy one of these fancy cameras: Project Draco, a spiritual successor to a Sega series that has sadly drifted away from the spotlight called Panzer Dragoon.