Video Games Coming out This Week [03-14 – 03-20, 2010]: Metro 2033, C&C 4, GoW III

On this day: 14 March, 2010 - Pi Day           

              

             

AAA’s Targets of the Week: Metro 2033, Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

With the games coming out this week, it’s no wonder Assassin’s Creed II got the hell out of the way, and came out last week. It would have had Metro 2033, C&C 4, and God of War III to contend with.

No doubt I can’t wait to get a hold of Metro 2033, which comes out on the 16th for PC and Xbox 360. It’s a post apocalyptic type game set in Moscow, Russia, based on the book of the same name, where the game’s characters spend most of their lives underground in the Metro tunnels. In the tunnels as well as above ground, there are horrors beyond belief, like your mutants and such, to combat.

It’s basically like Stalker in a way, but without the RPG elements, and not as open ended either. The experts say it plays more like a Call of Duty title. It will however feature multiple endings just like Stalker.

And then there’s Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, a PC exclusive. This is reportedly the final game in the Tiberian Saga of RTS titles, and from what I’ve read it’s not like any Command& Conquer you’ve played before.

Other big releases include the PS3 exclusive, God of War III, which has all ready been said by some who’ve played it to be a strong candidate for game of the year. And there’s Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening for multiple consoles, and expansion pack for Dragon Age: Origins.

To be honest, nothing excites me more than the aforementioned Metro 2033. I’m a big fan of the Stalker games and Fallout 3, and this sort of game appeals to me. It’s an original IP, unlike most of the other titles coming out this week, so it’s something new and fresh.

Links as usual go to game detail pages at Amazon, Steam, Direct2Drive, etc., where you can pick up the game of your choice or just browse.

Remember you can check out my aStore as well, where I’ve added the major releases under “2010 Games”.

PC

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight [Amazon - Retail] [Direct2Drive - Digital]
Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening [Amazon - Retail] [Direct2Drive - Digital]

Dragon Age: Origins + Awakening Bundle [Direct2Drive - Digital]
Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans
Metro 2033 [Amazon - Retail] [Steam - Digital]
Mount & Blade: Warband
Pet Forest
Sol Survivor [Steam - Digital]

Xbox 360

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening
Metro 2033
Perfect Dark [XBLA]
Resonance of Fate
Supreme Commander 2

PS3

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening       
God of War III
God of War III Ultimate Edition
Resonance of Fate
Wakeboarding HD [PSN]

Nintendo DS

101 MiniGolf World
Hidden Mysteries: Buckingham Palace
Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans
Infinite Space
Pokemon HeartGold Version

Limited Edition Pokemon HeartGold Version with Figurine 
Pokemon SoulSilver Version

Limited Edition Pokemon SoulSilver Version with Figurine   
Sonny With a Chance
Spectral Force Genesis
T.A.C. Heroes: Big Red One

Nintendo Wii

Family Gameshow
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon
Hall of Fame: Ultimate Hoops Challenge
Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans
Rage of the Gladiator [WiiWare]
Sam & Max 2: Beyond Time and Space
Triple Shot Sports [WiiWare]

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Sources: Gamespot - Shacknews

Video Games Coming out This Week [03-14 – 03-20, 2010]: Metro 2033, C&C 4, GoW III

It’s March, and it’s Man’s Month

Well, like I said the other day, it’s the end of February, and the end of everything lovey-dovey and slushy as “Valentine’s Month” is finally over.

I’m now going to explain why it’s Man’s Month and how it came about. Firstly, DSTV started calling March “Man’s Month” within the last couple of years, and adjusted their TV programming to reflect it with plenty of action movies. This was to make up for a whole month of those poor saps otherwise known as married men, having to sit through romantic films, otherwise known as chick flicks, bored out of their mind.

March also comes from the name Mars, which is the Roman God of War, and men are warring, vicious, and violent by nature, don’t you know.

This is also quite appropriate because March has a hell of a line-up when it comes to games, and one of them actually happens to be God of War 3. In addition to that, there’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Supreme Commander 2, Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition, Just Cause 2, Assassin’s Creed II for the PC, Metro 2033, and Command& Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. There’s a whole clump of these titles arriving on the 16th of March or so, right in the middle of the month, and more or less the Ides of March (I think it’s actually the 15th, but who cares), when Julius Caesar was murdered. Very manly.

On another note, the public holidays this month are all named after males. There’s St. David’s day (today), and there’s the much more well-known St. Patrick’s Day. Not to mention this month is the male equivalent of Valentine’s Day: Steak and BJ day. If you don’t know what that is, just google it, and you’ll see.

And hell, while we’re at it, my birthday is in this month. And it’s the beginning of Fall or Autumn, one of the best seasons of the year.

So, there’s a lot of reasons why March is one of the best months of the year, especially if you’re a man.

It’s March, and it’s Man’s Month

March Issue of NAG Magazine out This Thursday

The long awaited last Thursday of the month is looming, and we all know what that means: the new NAG will be in stores!

Included in this issue is a hands-on with the Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight multiplayer beta, and Heavy Rain, which is out today for the PS3, by the way. Reviews include Mass Effect 2 (playing it right now – epic game), Darksiders (everyone’s raving about this one), Army of Two: The 40th Day and Dark Void (got mixed reactions). Also advertised on the somewhat uninspired and unusual cover is something about an “uber, must-have guide to everything awesome” in 2010.

You’ll be pleased to know that this issue won’t have sand in it like the February issue did. In case you didn’t know, that was a marketing stunt that backfired pretty badly. The issue was themed around sand, you see. It was actually dubbed “The Sand Issue”, but the sand deposited in the plastic bag ended up getting in to the DVD packaging, and some people couldn’t even play the DVD, because it got scratched. They should have at least put the sand in a little bag or something.

As for the DVD’s contents, highlights include a Dark Void demo, and two demos centred around zombies, Zombie Driver and Zombilution, seeing as NAG is Zombie-mad, as is most of the world right now. There’s also the new Gamemaker 8, a 2D Half-Life game, as well as the usual hundreds of trailers and stuff.
Anyway, there’s no mention of this issue featuring two DVDs. I think it’s still under consideration and a result will probably come in later this year. The last time I checked, the poll on the NAG website was leaning more towards “Yes, give us another DVD!”.

On that note, if you haven’t yet done it for some reason, the time for your vote is coming to an end, as the 24th of February, which is tomorrow, and the day before the new issue comes out, is the last day that you can vote on this issue of whether you want another DVD bundled with the NAG, complete with a R10 price increase.

The short version: SMS “YES” or “NO” to 32541

Check here and here for more details on voting.
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Source: NAG

March Issue of NAG Magazine out This Thursday

Command& Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Doesn’t Have any Famous Stars, No Dedicated Servers or LAN Support Either

The all-star cast of 2008’s Red Alert 3. From Left: Gemma Atkinson, Randy Couture, Peter Stormare, George Takei, Jenny McCarthy, Tim Curry, J. K. Simmons, Jonathan Pryce, Gina Carano

FMVs have been a staple of every Command& Conquer and Red Alert game. And in almost all of them there’s been someone famous or semi-famous, or famous for no reason – like Tim Curry and Jenny McCarthy in Red Alert 3 or Pro Wrestling Legend Ric Flair in Red Alert 3: Uprising, among others.

But I found it interesting and maybe even a bit perplexing that Tiberian Twilight, the next and reportedly the last title in the Tiberian saga, will not have these famous faces, although they are professional actors [1].

Sam Bass - lead designer:

"Our cinematics always get written off as sort of campy. It works really well for Red Alert where it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek. Whereas C&C 4, the story itself is pretty dark. It’s a dark grim, tale. So we wanted to have it be more believable."

"The goal was to hire actors who weren’t known, outside of Joe Kucan [Kane] of course cause I think there would be rioting if we replaced Joe. And he’d personally kill me."

"We wanted to get actors who weren’t known faces but were good actors so you could just believe them as the character as opposed to going “OH IT’S THE GUY FROM STARSKY AND HUTCH!” So we wanted to take a different approach. It’s a little risky cause you get a little less bit of mind share with unknown people but I think it actually really helps the story."

Well, as long Red Alert keeps the campiness and celebrities, that’s fine. I always thought it was more campy, and humorous, whereas Command& Conquer is more serious.

Other bad news for Tiberian Twilight is that it won’t have support for LAN or dedicated servers [2].

"If you go to another machine -- friend's house, Internet café -- whatever, you can login with your profile and all the stuff you've unlocked is accessible to you there. It all lives on a server so you can't really do dedicated servers with that."

This is yet another game other than Modern Warfare 2, that started this madness, that is doing without dedicated servers, and it’s yet another RTS title that won’t have LAN support – the other being StarCraft II. Can you believe it? Some are of the opinion that the good old LAN game is dead, or dying at least.

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Sources: [1][2] Destructoid

Command& Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Doesn’t Have any Famous Stars, No Dedicated Servers or LAN Support Either

Command& Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Firestorm now Freeware

A few years ago, the first Command& Conquer as well as the first Red Alert were released for free. Now the good news is that EA recently announced that Command& Conquer: Tiberian Sun, otherwise known as Command& Conquer 2, has gone the same way, and is now available for free to download. And in addition to this, the expansion, Firestorm, is free as well. This was done to promote the upcoming C&C 4.

I was glad to see that as usual, the news has all ready spread to forums, including NAG, so it’s likely we’ll see both games on the “queue” soon, and eventually on the DVD and on our harddrives. I haven’t played Tiberian Sun for years, but all of a sudden I really want to, for some reason. It would almost certainly have to go on the NAG or PC Format DVD seeing as the file sizes are pretty large.

Now all we need is for Red Alert 2 to be free of charge on day as well. That game is nearly ten years old, and that seems to be a trend among developers. After ten years or so, they become freeware, unless they’re really big sellers that keep funding the studio.

So that means that C&C 3 and Red Alert 3 are way off from being gratis.

On a related note, Command& Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight should be out next month.

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Source: commandandconquer.com/

Command& Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Firestorm now Freeware

Command& Conquer 4 now Confirmed Officially...Officially

Now for a game that will be available on PC, but probably not on consoles, as is tradition with most RTS games- Command& Conquer 4.

It's been officially confirmed after that slip on twitter the other day, and it's going to be released next year. There have been some screens released, and more details on the game will be out later this month.

As you can see, the title is to the right- a subtitle coming soon. At least it's better looking than Thi4f.

Sources:

Command & Conquer 4 Details and Media
News: EA confirms C&C4 only for PC

Command& Conquer 4 now Confirmed Officially...Officially

Command& Conquer 4 now Official, but Still Sort of "Secret"

Yesterday I spoke of how rumours spread about a possible Syphon Filter 5. Well, after the survey that took place a while back, it has now "accidentally" slipped out on, yes you guessed it, Twitter, that Command& Conquer 4 is in development.

I'm sure we all knew this anyway. Why else would they have had that survey last month?

EA is certainly churning out the C&C stuff lately. Think of the eight year gap between RA 2 and RA 3, and the significantly shorter gap between C&C 3 and the announcement of C&C 4.

Sources:

EA accidentally announces Command& Conquer 4
Command & Conquer 4 Officially Announced

Command& Conquer 4 now Official, but Still Sort of "Secret"

Command& Conquer 4 on the Way?

A survey was conducted asking people about what they would like to see as far as the C&C series goes, which has led to speculation that Command& Conquer 4 is under development. It likely won't be out any time soon though if it is, seeing as C&C 3 was only out in 2007, and Red Alert 3 in 2008 with an expansion, Uprising, this year.

Apparently this C&C will be the last one.

I visited the site myself, but it states that the "survey has been closed, please close your browser".

Why close my browser when I can just close the tab? I'm surprised it didn't say "this page will self-destruct in ten seconds".

Sources:

C&C 4 in development?

Command & Conquer 4 Official Survey Conducted

C&C Survey

Command& Conquer 4 on the Way?