Space; it certainly isn’t living. While it’s not dead either it’s about to get a lot more of the latter with Electronic Art’s latest space-based action horror title Dead Space. Mashing elements of third person survival horror against fast paced action, Dead Space combines the best traits of some well known series to tell a horrific tale of discovery and survival set within the bowels of a recovered mining space ship, the Ishimura.
While “Resident Evil in space” is often an unfortunately accurate summary for the most part of Dead Space, one must look at the continual enhancements and refinements of the third person survival horror genre presented within. The audio package is top notch and well realised, utilised to the full potential that clear and appropriate sound effects can have in establishing an atmosphere in horror (more…)
The Game Damage crew have released the full pilot of their television series on YouTube for media and fans to see an early sample of what the guys have planned for the new series.
Yahtzee also joined Matt and Yug on another Australian Gamerpodcast to discuss feedback and plans for the series so it’s definitely worth a listen.
Check out the pilot above and be sure to visit the official site, hit the forums, and let them know what you think!
Developer: Rockstar San Diego Publisher: Rockstar Games Available on: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Reviewed on: PlayStation 3
Before I get into reviewing Midnight Club: Los Angeles, I feel I should state my views on the racing genre: I’m not a big fan of it. That said, I have had some fun with a few racing titles, such as Gran Turismo 3, Need For Speed: Underground and V8 Supercars. But the earliest racing game I can recall playing is Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge back on the Amiga. That game was released in 1990 and eighteen years later concept is still exactly the same: go around in circles really fast. The genre has evolved about as much as a Vogon and yet has an unhealthy tendency to produce endless sequels. We’re up to seven Burnout games, Gran Turismo 5 is on the horizon (ignoring all the Prologue and Concept spin-offs) and at the time of writing there are fifteen Need For Speed games. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the fourth game in the series, not counting the “remix” edition of Midnight Club 3. Given the ad finitum nature of the genre I haven’t been excited about a racing game since Burnout 3 when I discovered what a stroke of genius it was to break up the tedium of going around in circles really fast with the ability to smash opponents and enjoy it in slow motion in all its beautiful destruction. (more…)
Alongside the official box art above a worldwide release date of March 2009 was given; the official site is still bare bones but Rockstar are promising to follow this up with more info soon.
Gamespot and several online gaming sites have found leaked magazine scans of an interview with Rockstar Games vice president Dan Houser for details concerning GTA on the DS and it’s M rating.
Huang Lee is our new protagonist, a feisty Triad member (more…)
Premiered in person at eGames ‘08 was a brief preview of a new TV series being created and pitched worldwide by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw (Zero Punctuation) as well as Yug and Matt (Australian Gamer); Game Damage.
Game Damage Intro
Described as “The Chaser’s War On Everything meets Top Gear… about video games” by Yug, the threesome are currently (more…)
The other day I received an invite to a preview of the new Star Trek film directed by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield). This was quite a surprise for a couple of reasons: firstly the movie isn’t premiering until the 7th of May 2009 and secondly because Abrams had so far been decidedly secretive about this difficult undertaking. And make no mistake it is a difficult undertaking, with the commercial and critical failure of the last feature film Star Trek: Nemesis and the TV series, Star Trek: Enterprise, the future of the Star Trek franchise didn’t look good. Nevertheless, in come Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman with a brand new script that has the ambitious task of taking the series back to its prime while reinventing it for a new audience. This is something the series has debatably needed for quite some time, as Star Trek has always been one of the least accessible Sci-Fi franchises. So they had a fresh script - but that alone doesn’t make a blockbuster. What they needed was a big name director to pilot this ship and who they got was J. J. Abrams. The young action director who helmed hits like Mission Impossible 3 and Cloverfield is the Judd Apatow of action directors; the current ‘it’ guy.
Being a long-time Trekkie (meaning I just watch and enjoy the show not the dressing up as a Klingon and being generally creepy) I went into the preview with my mind decidedly undecided and my anticipation set to partially stunned (like 20% stunning capacity). They opened with the trailer which I think was a mistake as they had been playing it in a loop on the TVs where we had been waiting for several minutes and I had just joked to Kyle, who also attended, that the preview would be nothing but that. Then Abrams appeared… disappointingly only on screen. He thanked us for coming to the screening and apologised for not being able to make it. He then went on to talk about why he decided to make this movie, admitting he has never been a fan of the franchise. He never mentioned any reference to Australia, so I wasn’t sure if this was a specific introduction for us or just the stock one recorded for all the international previews. That being said he cheerfully and charismatically introduced the first of four scenes.
As mentioned, both Kyle and I attended the screening. While I’m a big Star Trek fan, Kyle’s experience with the franchise is having seen a single episode of Star Trek: Voyager. We’ll both be providing feedback on what we thought on each of the four scenes we witnessed.
Be warned that the following is a partial account of the scenes and may contain “spoilers”, however if you are still on the fence about seeing the new Star Trek film it may be helpful.(more…)
Like most gamers I’m familiar with the Call of Duty series, in fact it’s one of my favourites so when I got the opportunity to go to the launch party for the newest in the series Call of Duty: World at War hosted by Alienware my geek squeal of glee rang out across the land. I arrived at Swinburne University to discover I was 20 minutes late and the place was packed. 100 sweet looking Alienware PCs and 100 Xbox 360 were lined up inside the atrium and everyone single one was occupied by gamers who all looked pleased to finally be playing one of the most anticipated games of the year. (more…)
Will, Liam, Kyle and Kraden gather around the microphones to talk about what happened at the two big Melbourne events of November: Armageddon (pop culture expo) and eGames (video games con). From Armageddon we also have Steph talking with Gary Jones and Kavan Smith of Stargate. We also talk about Game1, American politics, Barrack Obama and go a bit silly.
Phew, posted an hour or so after midnight of November 30th. That still counts as November, right?
Where last year previously boasted the impressive Assassin’s Creed this year at eGames ‘08 Ubisoft presented Prince Of Persia on the main screen to a receptive and always numerous group of onlookers.
Ubisoft presents Prince Of Persia - eGames ‘08 Preview
Being featured both at Ubisoft’s booth and at Sony’s, much play time was had by all including yours truly who was sure to return to get a good feel at how the new Prince and his sexy sidekick (more…)
