By Kevin Kelly

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DC Comics and NetherRealm have crossed paths before although their first meeting was when creative director Ed Boon was working at Midway Studios, and that meeting resulted derailed what would have been the next installment of "Mortal Kombat," and instead became the 2008 fighting game "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe." While it might not feel like it set the world on fire, the game actually sold almost two million copies, and was on track to have a significant amount of DLC and would have been supported up until the release of "Mortal Kombat" from the then-renamed NetherRealm Studios, due to Midway's financial issues.

If you haven't played the game, the plot revolves around the Mortal Kombat and DC Comic universes colliding, and basically providing an excuse for these characters to fight each other. The fighting in the game was deep, as you would expect with the injection of Boon and his team's DNA, but it seemed to die a quick death after release, probably due again to the Midway issues. But the two teams are joining forces again, and the resulting game, "Injustice: Gods Among Us," is a much richer dive into the lore of DC Comics. Plus, there are no pesky Mortal Kombat characters butting in.

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After attending last week's preview event for "Beyond: Two Souls" at the Quantic Dream offices in Paris, I initially wanted to knock out my impressions of the approximately 10-15 minute hands-on demo as soon as I got home. But looking back over my notes from the full presentation--from the ambitions that CEO David Cage laid out for the game to some of the later gameplay footage we were shown, I wanted to sit on my impressions for a bit.

If you want the quick pitch: "Beyond" plays like a 3D adventure game with impeccable production value but what's troubling--that's too strong, what's curious--is that Quantic Dream didn't allow us to see something tangible in terms of how choice will affect the story.

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"It's been a long time for us keeping secrets we've been trying to keep," Quantic Dream’s CEO and founder David Cage tells the assembled journalists crammed in a dark mocap studio to see a presentation of "Beyond: Two Souls." That time and effort meant a new engine, a new, UI-light, contextual style of gameplay from the "Indigo Prophecy" and "Heavy Rain" developer.

During the hands-off guided tour of “Beyond,” Cage seemed to prime us all for our time with a brief pre-beta demo later in the day, setting our expectations for how the studio's new piece of interactive fiction would play out. Not playing the game and hearing Cage talk about it was instructive in its own strange way: we go to learn about some of the new tech and (most importantly) see and understand how almost pathologically Cage and his team are driven by visual fidelity and getting out of the player's way in their new game.

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As comic enthusiasts, we've been keeping a close eye on NetherRealms' superpowered smackdown "Injustice: Gods Among Us." Jason's pretty much covered the basics during his SDCC preview but I got a chance to dig in a little bit more on the story side as well as explore some of the extra bells and whistles. Caution: minor spoilers ahead.
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By Alan Danzis

At this point, odds are you know that "Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag" exists. After a variety of leaks last week, Ubisoft had to release the box art and confirm its existence. I, however, had a preview event a few days before the leaks started. What leaked was just the tip of the iceberg however as "Assassin’s Creed IV" is a large undertaking for the company.

While a new "Assassin’s Creed" game every year is now expected, it was a bit of surprise to find out we’d be getting the fourth numbered game as opposed to a spin-off ala "Brotherhood" and "Revelations" this year.
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First of all, thanks to Square Enix for stopping at MTV HQ to show off Lara's new adventure. Also, thanks to Patty Tenicela who helped me keep me cool through the whole process that otherwise would have been sorta embarassing for me (I'm not such a great public speaker '~'). Ok, so with that out of the way, we're taking a few shakey baby steps with a (hopefully) recurring video series about the latest big game releases. First up is 'Tomb Raider.'

All in all, we had about an hour and change to run through the violent and mysterious island, solve a few puzzles, eat a deer or two, threaten a rat, and tear our way through several psychotic bad guys. I'll let the video speak for itself but there's a quick mini-impression after the break. Hope you enjoy!
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By Kevin Kelly

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"Destiny" has been one of the worst-kept secrets in the game industry, what with the Bungie/Activision contract leaking amidst the "Call of Duty" court case last May, the story/art leak in November, and Bungie itself even teased the game deep inside of "Halo 3: ODST". But those were all just small pieces of the puzzle, and now we’ve finally been able to sit down with the studio and officially take a look at the game.

Well, at least we’ve seen pieces of the game. It’s a bit like Leonardo da Vinci showing you a palette, some paints, a brush, and a canvas, and then saying, “Here’s what I’ll be using to paint the Mona Lisa.” Because this was a first look at their new creation, it was very top-level, explaining the story, and blasting us with a lot of concept art.  There were some brief glimpses of in-game footage, but not nearly enough to satisfy us. After all, we are gamers, and every time we see a new game teased, our trigger fingers immediately start itching as we want to try it out.

But you probably want to know what we found out. So here’s a handy guide to what Destiny is all about…. so far.

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A shadow quickly slips into the swamp, invisible and unheard as a squad of CELL agents fan out into the murky waters investigating a few scattered noises. They're not quite sure what to expect but they remain vigilant if not a little tense, burdened by heavy weaponry and itching for a fight. The shadow has a eluded them before- always seeming to explode out of the ether and devastate the unsuspecting soldiers. Moving in a tight formation, they see a splash nearby. It's just a disinterested frog plopping into the muck croaking to itself. Satisfied nothing is wrong, the mercenaries retread their steps back to camp. One turns around just to double check but it's already to late. The invisible viper they had been hunting sinks its steel fang into the soldier's throat. The real hunt has just begun.

In many games you are the hero. This time, however, you are the monster - some twisted combination of phantom and tank melded into a single lethal vector of chaos. Thanks to your alien-tech powered Nanosuit, you are more than human, a super soldier able to take the toughest foe. One minute, you can activate your stealth a become rendered completely invisible and perfectly camouflaged in the environment. The next moment, you can flip on armor mode becoming a bulldozer with a purpose- to storm into a group of enemies crushing them with your might. It's these choices that have always been the basis of combat in the shooter franchise. Either go in quite or run through guns blazing. In "Crysis 3" not much has changed mechanically. But that ain't exactly a bad thing because you can sneak up to a dubious merc, wring him by the neck, then hurl him into space.
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"Where is the stupid Combat Cross" I asked for the tenth time about a two-thirds of the way through my recent hands-on play session with "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate," MecurySteam's bridging chapter between their first and upcoming second "Lords of Shadow" games. Everywhere I looked, there's be a glowing hook, just out of reach and a reminder that I'd need to revisit later, possibly another location where Simon Belmont might be able to better outfit himself against the horrors of the night spawned by Dracula.

MercurySteam was teasing the next ability for my character a little too heavily, and I was nearing the end of my patience with this 2.5D platformer inspired by the 16 and 8-bit "Castlevanias" past. But then I encountered the first boss battle, and "Mirror of Fate" had me hooked.

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Last week, journalists were transported to Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood to get a hands-on preview with Naughty Dog's survival horror epic "The Last of Us." The latest peek at the plague-ravaged North America created by the “Uncharted” studio has me looking forward to their survival horror epic even more than I was when it was first announced.

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