#watchthis
Can you imagine if this was one game? One shooting, stabbing, jumping, running, driving, flying master piece of gore, politics, character growth, feminism and dude-brotopia? More »
#starwars
I found these eight postcards at Lucas Arts's E3 backstage meeting room, a place that was also home to a tiny museum and playable copy of Kinect Star Wars. More »
The game I was most interested to see this year was Tomb Raider. Of everything on show, this was the one I was most intrigued by, based on Crystal Dynamics’ stellar record with the license so far, and the dark, gloomy tone that’s promised. Potential levels high. Which means I feel strange coming away from the demo a lot more concerned. Mostly by quick time events.
I'm going to take the mic here for a moment, readers, and tell you something personally: It has been fascinating to watch the development of Codemasters' FPS Bodycount. I originally posted the game's unofficial announcement early last year, saw a preview and talked to creator Stuart Black at last year's E3, saw the game in action after Black left the project and, finally, got to see and play it last week at this year's E3 conference.
Long story short, I've basically had a front row seat on the development of this one, and it's been very interesting to watch it develop over the past 16 months. Black's original vision was not much more than just a demo level, a slick future shooter with a snappy female voice feeding orders in your ear. And from preview to preview, that vision has been prodded and poked by other developers, growing up into the game Bodycount has become.
Unfortunately, much of what appealed in the initial vision has gotten a little muddied along the way. Some elements of that early demo are still in there (and there's a whole lot more besides), but Bodycount's gone from a lot of unique potential to a much more mundane reality.
Capcom's Dragon's Dogma shares some top-level similarities with Monster Hunter -- like the part about how the whole game is hunting monsters, for example -- but Capcom feels like it's approaching this one from a more Western perspective. It's a bit more grimdark, a little more realistic, with no poogies around or adorable cat-guys to help you out.
"Our goal was to make it a very Western fantasy lore-based game," director Hideaki Itsuno told me during an interview. "Most of the creatures you see in the game come from Western fantasy lore." This includes not just the boss-type monsters, but, for example, the hordes of goblins attacking you in-between.
We last saw Lord of the Rings: War in the North back in March, and the mechanics haven't changed much in the version seen on the floor of E3 earlier this week. It's still a three-player co-op game, featuring an elf caster, a human rogue and a dwarf fighter beating down some of the familiar baddies from the Lord of the Rings franchise with a nice layer of RPG on top. The game's not incredible, but it's a more than serviceable action title, made better with a few good friends to play with.
This latest preview focused on a slightly different objective than last time -- in the short part of the demo I played, my cohorts and I had to defend a set of elven brothers that were casting some magic to break open a fortress door, with a few waves of enemies rolling in after us. Fortunately, we weren't alone -- while my companions depended on their weapons, and my axe, we had one other secret weapon up our sleeves: A giant eagle.
PDP came packing lots of plastic here at E3 and after taking a quick tour of the company's offerings -- some of which are available, some of which are coming down the line -- I was handed some media; lots of images for you to pore over. Hit the jump to check out the hardware.
Deadiest Warrior has a long history of surprising me at trade shows by being much, much better than any licensed downloadable game has a right to be. That trend wasn't bucked at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo, where the newly rebranded publisher 345 Games -- not to be confused with 343 Industries or 505 Games, mind you -- showed off Pipeworks' second stab at the combatative franchise, Deadliest Warrior: Legends.
The title appears to bring a number of intriguing, necessary additions to the core one-on-one combat system, possibly bringing it into parity with deeper entries in the genre. However, the aspect which provided me with my annual jolt of surprise didn't involve dismembered, anachronistic soldiers: It involved the game's new strategic game mode, "Generals."
#watchthis
The hottest trend at E3 this year? It wasn't shooters; it wasn't connectivity; it wasn't butt-sliding or trains or social network wrappers. It was boats. Did you notice? More »
It doesn't take long looking at screens or video from BioShock Infinite for you to realize it looks like nothing else on the market. We talked with lead artist Shawn Robertson about how the game's unique aesthetic evolved.
When you were building the world, what were some of your aesthetic influences? For me, I kept flashing back to Main Street at Disney World, you know, when you first walk in?
Good call, that's the period, that Gilded Age of America, the early 1900s when everybody's so full of hope and optimism. We didn't start there, it's definitely a journey. When we started, when we had the idea of a city in the sky, we were looking a lot at Art Nouveau, and Art Nouveau is kind of a dark, goth movement of the time, swirlies, very organic. The first few maps we built might as well have been Rapture. We brought the clouds in, it was dark and stormy, the clouds had a greenish tinge to them, it was very claustrophobic. Then we started pushing the clouds out.
E3 2011 is doner than done ... it's donerer. We've got a reader meetup going on now in downtown Los Angeles, and it'd be awesome if you could join us.
We've also got developer folks here with games. Be part of the first members of the public to play Dance Central 2 and check out the magic of Retro City Rampage, along with others. Again, it's for the 21+ crowd (sorry! we know it's wrong!), so come drop by, we'll be here until 9:00PM.
Head past the break for the entire list of games and details of the event location. Looking forward to meeting you. XOXO, Joystiq.
Tags: GameTrailers.com, E3 2011: Master Angler Walkthrough (Cam), PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Tags: GameTrailers.com, E3 2011: Custom Faces Walkthrough (Cam), PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Tags: GameTrailers.com, E3 2011: 3DS Gameplay Walkthrough (Cam), PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Tags: GameTrailers.com, E3 2011: 3D Trailer Walkthrough, PC Games, PlayStation [...]
#impressions
The aircraft of the venerable Ace Combat series all have been of the fixed-wing variety. The most notable variance in the latest installment Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is the inclusion of helicopters, as many saw when the game's first trailer showed an Apache Longbow used in gameplay. More »
#venivicivideo
If you've never experienced E3 before, right as you feel like you've caught up with the breakneck pace of announcements, presentations and demonstrations, the show is over. It's one of those weeks that seems to pass in the blink of an eye. More »
While on the show floor, Cort and I had a very intelligent, completely mature conversation about the booth babes at this year’s E3. We came to the conclusion that this year’s booth babe collection might be the very best group yet. I’ll just leave it at that, rather than get into the details!
Check [...]
Xcom, then. Irrational’s upcoming re-imagining of a strategy classic, transplanting all those government men and sinister aliens into a tactical FPS. Will it be any good? We couldn’t say. Alec broke our crystal ball years ago because he thought it was a trackball. Maybe you can help? We had a trailer earlier in the week, and now we have some new screens you’ll find after the jump. Gaze into these screens, reader. Run your hands over your monitor. What do you see?(more…)
#e32011
Aside from two years spent in Santa Monica that we'll never speak of again, the Electronic Entertainment Expo has always been held in Los Angeles. But that doesn't mean it always will. More »
#e32011
Yesterday, we asked you to nominate your choice for E3 2011's Game Of The Show. It could be based on anything: your heart, your head, a trailer, some gameplay, whatever. And now, the results are in! More »
Oskari Häkkinen, head of franchise development for Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment, told Joystiq last month that, in fact, a new Alan Wake project was under development. Admittedly, we were getting a little ahead of ourselves when we arrived at E3 this year in full Alan Wake cosplay so the absence of the latest A. Wake project - rumored to be an XBLA title called Alan Wake's Night Springs - hit us pretty hard.
So we tracked down Microsoft Studios chief Phil Spencer to grill him about Remedy's reveal and the dearth of Alan Wake games in Microsoft's E3 lineup. "I read that," Spencer said, laughing about the news. "I don't know that they've signed it with anybody." While Spencer told us that Wake "didn't sell as well as we would have liked," he was clear that it wouldn't affect their working relationship. "I'd love to work with Remedy again," he told us. "We have ongoing conversations with them."
So if Microsoft isn't privy to what Remedy's working on, who is? "I think the stuff they're doing now they wanted to incubate, Mattias and the team," Spencer said. "They wanted to incubate internally. Like I said, I don't think they've signed it with anybody." Well, as long as that's the case, we'll have our Joystiq Publishing representatives get in touch with Remedy and work something out. Our backrub-heavy royalty system is an industry first.
You guys, I really want to like Anarchy Reigns. It's a ridiculous, over-the-top brawler and I really liked MadWorld -- like, a lot. So imagine my disappointment when I realized the only thing holding back Anarchy Reigns from being a whole lot of fun is the camera.
