Archives: Games

Dead Island; the latest zombie slasher game to lurch onto console and PC.

This upcoming zombie fest has caught the attention of many people (even Simon Peg and Hideo Kojima have tweeted about it ). Now it has caught my attention, and thus, yours. One can never have enough wanton violence. Check out the trailer on the website; its a very nicely done thing and goes some way to counteracting the silly name. Regurgitatum:

Terror. Violence. Madness. Bedlam. A holiday paradise gone mad. A tropical island turns into total chaos after a mysterious zombie outbreak. Cut off from the rest of the world, the player’s only chance to survive is to fight to the death and find a way to escape from the island.

Deep Silver announced today that it will publish Dead Island™, the upcoming gruesome zombie slasher by renowned developer Techland. Dead Island combines first-person action with a heavy focus on melee combat, character development and customization of a vast array of weapons. All of these gameplay features are presented in a dark story inspired by classic zombie movies with a gritty and engrossing campaign that can be played with up to four players in co-op mode.

Set in an open world tropical island, hordes of different festering zombies await players around every corner while they embark on a variety of thrilling missions through the holiday resort. With firearms and ammunition being scarce the player must rely on utilizing found items as weapons for self-defense and fight off zombie hordes in intense melee combat. A diverse range of items can be collected and will later serve to transform the player’s ordinary makeshift weapons into serious instruments of destruction.

In addition to satisfying even the most bloodthirsty action fan’s fantasy, Dead Island also features role-playing elements which allow the player to develop one of the game’s unique character classes according to their preferences, all the while learning new skills and fresh tactics during their journey through the perilous environments of the island. What’s more, anytime during a game up to four players can seamlessly join together and experience the intense combat and immersive story with cooperative gameplay.

With the all-new Chrome Engine 5 powering Dead Island, the game will use the latest installment of Techland’s acclaimed proprietary game engine, allowing the player to experience the tropical island paradise in graphical splendor with diverse environments like lush forests and detailed city environments.

Dead Island will be released worldwide for the PlayStation^®3 computer entertainment system, the Xbox 360^Ò video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC later this year.

A CGI trailer for Dead Island can be found in the official Facebook group www.facebook.com/deadislandgame.

Official website: www.deadisland.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/deadislandgame

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Is Crasher a smasher? or will it crash and burn?

Crasher, the new vehicle based MMO by French studio Puncher’s Impact, has had a slow launch. Finding enough people to play with in order to review the game turned out to be quite a task… though of course my unsociable hours provide no help.

Watching 800 seconds of your life tick away on the automatic match maker is no fun at all. I do however remain optimistic that this problem will fix itself once the game gains popularity. Crasher deserves more fans; it’s unusual, fun and has a certain charm.

One thing that is clear to any player upon loading their first matches is that Crasher is not for the graphically obsessive. The Borderlands-style shading and simple maps are not pretty, though of course anyone with a slow internet connection will be quite happy to sacrifice visuals for smooth gameplay.

On the plus side, the gameplay does carry the game a long way. At first there is a great deal of button mashing and accidentally driving backwards until you get used to the mouse steering and number key skill buttons. Chaos rules the day, especially in smaller maps, where a variety of space age cars will smash into you while launching missiles and you and making the ground turn into chain saws. Yes, chain saws- and that’s not the weirdest of the special powers, but we will get to that later.

After getting the hang of the controls (which does not take long, they are in fact quite fluid) and the pace of the game, Crasher has a lot to offer for fans of rough and ready combat. The essential gist of a fight involves two cars driving fast at each other while activating every power they can in the hope of blowing up the other car. The trick is using the right powers at the right time and range; naturally a melee vehicle needs to close distance while a ranged attack vehicle will try to activate crippling powers before the enemy can approach.

The powers make little to no sense, so don’t expect any. My favorite vehicle, the Firestorm, can turn into a meteor, somehow. Still, its schlock fun and like most online games it becomes enjoyable and even addictive after you achieve a few successes.  The tactical element of the powers provides something for the calculating gamer and the fact that a bit of button mashing and ramming can often win the day provides something for the trigger happy gamer.

For example, Tank vehicles absorb enemy firepower and shrug it off. The Bulldozer can literally absorb the damage taken by vehicles around it by using a bonding power, allowing it to become a sacrificial lamb at the center of a trap. Constructor vehicles perform auxiliary moves like building turrets and mines to enable control of the battlefield, vital in area capture mode.

Each class has its archetypal abilities but each vehicle within a class has unique abilities too, plus stat-boosting equipment and special moves are earned through victory, so the tactical combinations are huge and allow for players to surprise enemies who judge a tank by its turret.

Capture the base mode is good fun and has a dynamic edge in that the area to be captured moves around. These games are longer and allow a player to get to grips with their powers more. Deathmatch games tend to be over in a flash but they cut out any unwanted exploring and get right to the action. A single player AI deathmatch would be great for Crasher, but its understandable why it was left out; the game is about multiplayer combat and has no story or setting to speak of.

The game has been patched already to tweak several aspects. This was much needed and a good sign of dedicated service to come. Balancing still seems to be somewhat of an issue but that’s nothing new to MMO players. The only thing I want Puncher’s Impact to explain is why the icon for Crasher looks like an ‘S’. Mysterious.

This game will not appeal to everyone. It’s rough around the edges and is so random in places that it feels a bit like someone just glued some ideas together and wrote ‘vehicular deathmatch’ on the resulting lump of chainsaws and meteors. I recommend trying out demo mode before buying. My final verdict? Crashtastic. It’s a word now.

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2011 = Bethesda! Brink May 30th. Hunted June 3rd. Rage Sept 16th. Skyrim Nov 11th!

Regurgitatum:

January 27th, 2011 (London, UK) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax® Media company, today announced the release dates of four multiplatform AAA titles shipping in 2011. Brink™, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge™, RAGE™, and The Elder Scrolls® V: Skyrim™ are all slated for release on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows.

Brink, an immersive first-person shooter under development at Splash Damage, will be available in North America on May 17^th and in Europe on May 20^th. Brink was named as the ‘Game of Show’ at Eurogamer Expo 2010, while G4TV.com declared “Brink takes shooters to a whole new level”.  Blending single-player, co-op, and multiplayer action into one seamless experience, Brink features dynamic battlefields, extensive customisation options and an innovative control system.

Hunted, a fantasy action game, will be available in retail stores across North America on June 1^st and on store shelves in Europe on June 3^rd. Hunted is a fresh take on the classic dungeon crawl experience that delivers the intensity and action of a modern-day shooter. Hunted, under development at inXile Entertainment, has been called “A Dungeon Crawl for the Gears Age” by Kotaku.com and has been described by Eurogamer as “violent, deceptively thoughtful and witty.”

RAGE, the highly anticipated first-person shooter from legendary developer id Software, will hit retail shelves across North America on September 13^th and throughout Europe on September 16^th. The game won numerous awards at E3 2010, including ‘Best Overall Game of Show’ from IGN and three ‘Best of E3’ Game Critics Awards  including ‘Best Console Game’. RAGE features intense first-person shooter action, breakneck vehicle combat, an expansive world to explore and jaw-dropping graphics powered by id’s revolutionary id Tech 5 technology.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the most recently announced title from world-renowned developer Bethesda Game Studios. The studio is widely known for developing the 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout® 3 and the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®. Skyrim, the latest chapter in The Elder Scrolls saga, re-imagines and revolutionises the open-world fantasy epic and will launch worldwide on November 11^th (11.11.11).

“We are thrilled to offer our fans such a strong roster of games,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “We are excited to present such a diverse line-up of high quality titles.  2011 will be a great year for gamers.”

For more information visit Hunted at www.HuntedTheGame.com, Brink at www.BrinkTheGame.com, RAGE at www.RAGE.com, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at www.TheElderScrolls.com.

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