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

Apocalypse Then: Firestorm

10 Years of Firestorm

Back in 2000, around the end of February, beginning of March (damn release dates – Wikipedia says it’s today, the 8th), Firestorm, the sole expansion for the RTS great, Command& Conquer: Tiberian Sun, was released.

It brought some new GDI and NOD units to play with, new upgrades, new maps, a random map generator, and a whole new story and missions.

Recently EA released both Tiberian Sun and Firestorm as freeware, and you can download them off the C&C website.

Apocalypse Then: Firestorm

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?

Frank Klepacki’s Birthday

Africa Day (holiday)

On this day, in 1974, Frank Klepacki was born. He turns 35 today. Frank Klepacki is a renowned Polish-American musician, video game music composer and sound director, best known for his work on the Command & Conquer and Red Alert games, as well as other Westwood and EA series.

Discography

Video game music

DragonStrike (Westwood Studios, 1991)
Eye of the Beholder II (Westwood Studios, 1991)
Dune II (Westwood Studios, 1992)
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun (Westwood Studios, 1992)
Order of the Griffon (Westwood Studios, 1992)
The Legend of Kyrandia (Westwood Studios, 1992)
Lands of Lore (Westwood Studios, 1993)
The Legend of Kyrandia II (Westwood Studios, 1993)
Disney's The Lion King (Westwood Studios, 1994)
The Legend of Kyrandia III (Westwood Studios, 1994)
Young Merlin (Westwood Studios, 1994)
Command & Conquer (Westwood Studios, 1995)
Parker Brother's Monopoly (Westwood Studios, 1995)
Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations (Westwood Studios, 1996)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Westwood Studios, 1996)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike (Westwood Studios, 1997)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Aftermath (Westwood Studios, 1997)
Lands of Lore 2 (Westwood Studios, 1997)
Blade Runner (Westwood Studios, 1997)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Retaliation (Westwood Studios, 1998)
Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor (Westwood Studios, 1998)
Dune 2000 (Westwood Studios, 1998)
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (Westwood Studios, 1999)
Lands of Lore 3 (Westwood Studios, 1999)
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: Firestorm (Westwood Studios, 2000)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (Westwood Studios, 2000)
Nox (Westwood Studios, 2000)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge (Westwood Studios, 2001)
Emperor: Battle for Dune (Westwood Studios, 2001)
Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (Electronic Arts, 2001)
Command & Conquer: Renegade (Westwood Studios, 2002)
Earth & Beyond (Westwood Studios, 2002)
Star Wars: Empire at War (Petroglyph Games, 2006)
Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption (Petroglyph Games, 2006)
Universe at War: Earth Assault (Petroglyph Games, 2007)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA Los Angeles, 2008)

Band, film, and solo music

There's a Home (I AM, 1995)
Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, (Home Cookin', 1997)
Unreel Invasion (short film, 1999)
Pink in the Middle (Home Cookin', 2000)
Essence of the Force (short film, 2002)
Morphscape (2002)
Rocktronic (2004)
Virtual Control (2005)
The Bitters (The Bitters, 2006)
Awakening of Aggression (2006)

Commercial music

MTV (1997)
Cupid (abc, 2000)
Miller Genuine Draft (2001)
Ultimate Fighting Championship Pay-per view (Fox Sports, 2003–2006)
The Ultimate Fighter (Spike TV, 2005–2006)
Ultimate Fight Night (Spike TV, 2005–2006)
Amp'd Mobile (Spike TV, 2005–2006)
Inside the MMA (HDNet, 2007)
HDNet Fights (HDNet, 2007)

Resources:http://www.frankklepacki.com/

Frank Klepacki’s Birthday