Xbox 360

Hydrophobia Sequel Coming?

The slightly divisive yet mostly terrible Hydrophobia,
released last September, has been thrashed violently ever since its release and
now Dark Energy Digitals seems to want to make another one Hydrophobia. This
one being called Hydrophobia: Prophecy, the game has not been announced yet but
it has appeared on a classification database out of Australia. While this is an
odd place to find an unannounced game, it seems to be legit.

If you don’t remember, Dark Energy Digital released a free
update to Hydrophobia a few months ago called Hydrophobia Pure. I played it and
I have to say, it wasn’t as horrible as the original game was. Though that is
like saying shit smells better than puke. It improved on some of controls which
is nice but it’s impossible to change the horrid voice work and pitiful story
in just an update. We can hope that in this possible sequel, they’ll fix every
issue. I’m not holding my breath until they do though.

Inversion Preview

Inversion is a third person gravity manipulation game that was announced way back in October of 2009. For around a year after that, there seemed to be almost a complete media blackout on Inversion. We’ll dive further into the recent developments of Inversion in a bit but as of now, let’s talk about what the original announcement press release set up for this gravity shaking (get it?) game.

Inversion is developed by Saber Interactive and Published by Namco Bandai. If you don’t know Saber, they made games such as Timeshift and the recent Battle: LA XBLA title. Both of these games were bashed pretty hard by critics for being too derivative of other shooters. Saber seems to have taken these complaints to heart as now they will combine the destructibility of the Havok engine (as seen in Red Faction: Guerilla) and the uniqueness of their many concepts placed within Inversion.

New Mix Pack for DJ Hero 2

Wannabe DJ’s have a new reason to come back to their favorite turntable spinning game, and it actually may be their last.

Activision announced today the release of a new three-song pack for DJ Hero 2. Called the “Ultra Mix Pack,” it includes “House Music” by Benny Benassi (Remix by FSG), “Sofi Needs a Ladder” by Deadmau5 (Remix by FSG), and “We No Speak Americano” by Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP (Remix by FSG).

“Extremely Limited Edition” Deus Ex Limited to Europe and Australia

We’re just a few months away from the highly anticipated release
of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and publisher Square Enix is teasing fans with
the announcement of an “extremely limited” collector’s edition of the prequel,
so limited that it’s also exclusive to Europe and Australia.

Packed inside the “Collector’s Box” is a figurine of the
game’s main character, Adam Jensen, an exclusive mission with a special cameo
from an original Deus Ex character, five exclusive weapons, 10,000 in-game
credits that can be used for buying or upgrading weapons, a making of DVD, the
game’s soundtrack, a motion comic, an animated storyboard, and the obligatory
art book.

The Trend of Multiplayer Statistics

Do you care
about your kill to death ratio? A lot of other people certainly do, it’s part
of something that has become somewhat of a staple in our multiplayer modes
these days, that being statistics. While this is certainly not a bad thing, we
all love to compare our stats with other people, they are becoming far more
important than perhaps they should. I’m sure you have encountered the people
that prioritise their statistics higher than everything else, like playing the
game.

First person
shooters are the genre that has been affected the most by this recent trend. A
lot of people simply don’t care about playing the objective when they can just
farm a bunch of kills and appear better because their kill to death ratio is
higher than others. This is obviously a load of bull, but that doesn’t change
the fact that stat tracking is having a much more negative impact than it
should. Especially when you consider that people actually reset their accounts
and create new ones for the sole purpose of having better stats than other
players.

Gears 3 Beta Report: Volume 1

The beta is
up for all the epic edition owners of Bulletstorm, and any worry that spending
that extra money wasn’t worth it should be long gone. This is simply a massive
improvement over the previous multiplayer 
experiences, this entry will cover the new weapons currently in the
beta, keep a look out for volume 2 later in the week. Anyway, let’s get
started…

Retro Lancer

Easily my
personal favourite so far, this is an absolute beast of a weapon in close
quarters, you can easily go toe to toe with someone wielding a gnasher and come
out on top. Holding down the melee button will initiate the charge move; if
your target is damaged enough, or you hit them in the back be ready to roar in
satisfaction as you impale them on the massive dagger attached to it. The big
disadvantage with this gun is that it has massive recoil when you fire anymore
than a couple of shots. Pace your shots and you can easily down someone in no
more than 6, this weapon is tricky to get the hang of, but you’ll be racking up
kills left and right once you get the timing down. The reload time is also very
long, timing the perfect active isn’t really worth the trade off though, it’s
much better to play it safe and reduce the risk of jamming.

Yar’s Revenge Review

It’s not
very often that I’ve never heard of an old game like Yar’s Revenge. A remake of
the original game for the Atari 2600, this iteration bears little resemblance
to the original though. While we do have modern graphics and controls to thank
for that, the game itself plays very differently. Yar’s Revenge is a very
simple twin-stick shooter, however, you’re not viewing everything from a fixed
angle like in most games of this type. Instead, the camera is placed behind you
as you fly through the levels, constantly switching from one viewpoint to the
other. While the standards set by this type of game aren’t incredibly high,
Yars Revenge does virtually nothing to add to the overall experience provided
by this type of game.

Let’s start
with the story, the titular Yar is now some sort of female warrior wearing a
pretty cool looking suit of power armour. The entire story is delivered through
silent, picture scrolling cut scenes that fall flat the minute they begin. The
lack of any voice talent is baffling here, due to how hollow the plot is
anyway, this comes across as being incredibly lazy. You battle your way through
six levels in the campaign, all of which can be played cooperatively and have
several modes of difficulty.