Apocalypso's Atomic Arcade

2009/11/21

Chaos Computers Technology Expo Running Until mid December

In local news, in the Tygerburger this week, I saw ad two adverts as well as the usual insert for Chaos Computers, advertising their currently happening "Expo Sure" that takes place from 19 November until 13 December.

"Chaos would like to introduce you to the latest in computer hardware, software, and accessories. We think beyond the hardware, plug-ins, and styrofoam packaging- constantly on the look-out for creative, game-changing solutions to meet your needs. Come test, experience and compare all the new computer gadgets a gizmos at the Centre Court of CapeGate Shopping Centre from 19 November to13 December 2009. It's our chance to turn the computer fuss into computer fun with an expo arena fully loaded for action."

This is the first time I've seen something like this run for nearly a whole month- usually it's a couple of days or so. You can also visit the main website for the expanding retail chain and check it out.

Don't you think that little girl in the advert is just pathetic? Not her, but the look on her face. As if she cares about all this stuff. This stuff is for the boys and men!

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http://www.chaosnet.co.za/

Bioshock 2 Box Art Revealed

I'm a big fan of video game box art, and recently I took a look at Mass Effect 2's latest effort. Despite the box art being kind of "ho-hum", I wouldn't be discouraged, and decided to take a look at Bioshock 2's new box art.

It's not bad, and features the prototype Big Daddy, different from the usual big daddies, which you'll play as in Bioshock 2, as well as one of the creepy Little Sisters on the thing's back.

From the art and such I've seen of the game, it looks as though there will be different variations of Big Daddies, and even a Big Sister too.

It also looks as though they'll be sticking with Bioshock 2, and not "Sea of Dreams" as a subtitle, which I think might have actually been better.

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Big Download

Rumblings: F.E.A.R. 3 Coming Next Year, Scribblenauts 2 too

There was rumours earlier on in the year of a new title coming from Monolith, and those rumours have been brought up again, as some French site is talking about receiving an Excel file with some sensitive information about Monolith's titles possibly coming next year, and among them was apparently F.E.A.R. 3, as well as a sequel to some game called Scribblenauts.

Other than that there are titles like Batman: The Brave and The Bold, The Lord of the Rings RPG, Game Party 4, and Touchmaster 4. Note that these titles may or may not be correct due to Google translate.

The site says that at the request of Warner Bros. they took down the table, and the company denied any and all information, and that the file sent to them was either a mistake or false information (Google translate).

Anyway, the one I care about is F.E.A.R. 3, seeing as I've posted about this on the blog a couple of times. It does seem a little early for another title considering that F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin was only released in February this year, but not impossible. The thing is that people are begging for Monolith to please switch to another engine before getting to heavily into development. And if it is indeed going to be released in October 2010, then one wonders whether they're still sticking with Jupiter EX, or if they've gone with Unreal Engine 3 or id Tech 4, two common choices nowadays.

F.E.A.R. 2, despite being disappointing to some, and average compared to the first game, did have a few good levels, like the one in the school, which was very Condemned: Criminal Origins, but just as cool if not more so.

F.E.A.R. 3 needs to be scarier and more mysterious, like the first game, and give you some stuff to figure out on your own. That's what works in crime thrillers, anyway.

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jeuxactu.com
jeuxactu.com (translated)
Rumor: Scribblenauts 2 and F.E.A.R 3 coming next year

2009/11/20

New Box Art for Mass Effect 2 Released

So, BioWare has released a couple of shots of the new cover art for Mass Effect 2.

New Box Art

This art will replace the old art that was shown earlier on in the year.

Old Box Art

And what does everyone think? Well, nobody seemed to like the old one, and nobody likes the new one either. Surprise, Surprise.

The game itself is still due for release next year in January, simultaneously launched on PC and Xbox 360 (no PS3 for now), so we'll see whether it changes again by then.

This here is the Collector's Edition box, which I think is pretty cool:

2009/11/19

Borderlands Soundtrack Coming Out in December

Didn't think there was a sound track in Borderlands? Well, yes there is, and it will be out this December in time for Christmas.

It features the talents of Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco, Raison Varner, Tim Larkin, and Jesper Kyd. Jesper Kyd is especially well-known in the industry, and is probably recognized as the artist responsible for the Hitman series and Assassin's Creed.

Hitman Blood Money contains one of favourite game OSTs ever, and it was composed by that man.

Well anyway, here's the track list. Note that it doesn't contain “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant. There are some bonus tracks added though.

1. Prelude (Jesper Kyd)
2. Welcome To Fyrestone (Jesper Kyd)
3. Enter Skag Gully (Raison Varner)
4. Fighting Off The Skags (Raison Varner)
5. Removing The Bandit Threat (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
6. Traversing The Deep (Raison Varner)
7. Fighting Sledge's Minions (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
8. Welcome to The Bunker (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
9. Smoking Out The Bunker (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
10. Burning Rubber and Shooting Bullets (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
11. The Junkyard Vista (Jesper Kyd)
12. Welcome to The Trash Coast (Raison Varner)
13. The Rakkhive Emerges (Raison Varner)
14. Assaulting Krom's Canyon (Raison Varner)
15. Battling Krom's Minions (Raison Varner)
16. Fighting Krom and His Gun (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
17. Trash The Bandits (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
18. Trash The Bandits Some More (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
19. Welcome To The Wastelands (Jesper Kyd)
20. Traveling To The Vault (Raison Varner)
21. Destroying the Destroyer (Raison Varner)
22. Bonus - Bring Your Guns (Jesper Kyd)
23. Bonus - Borderlands (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
24. Bonus - The Old New Haven (Tim Larkin)
25. Bonus - Exploring the Mine (Tim Larkin)
26. Bonus - Exploring Overlook (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)
27. Bonus - The Threat At Overlook (Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco)

You can pick up the Borderlands OST from Amazon.

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http://twitter.com/GearboxSoftware/statuses/5805128094
Destructoid

Apocalypse Then: Half-Life

11 Years of Half-Life

Well, recently I covered Half-Life 2’s five year anniversary. Today is its older prequel’s 11th anniversary. I would have covered it last year, but I only started the blog this year.

Half-Life, a sci-fi FPS title, was developed by Valve Corporation, published by Sierra, and distributed by Electronic Arts for retail and Steam online. The game initially had trouble finding a publisher seeing as people claimed it was too ambitious. Originally for PC, it was later released on PS2 along with Half-Life: Decay, a PS2 exclusive addon, until recently when a team ported the addon to the PC. An unofficial Dreamcast port was leaked onto the internet, and there was also a Macintosh port too.

Released on the 19th of November 1998, it was Valve’s first game, in development since 1996 when Valve was founded by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. The game has since been praised several million times as revolutionizing the FPS genre in areas such as AI, gameplay involving puzzles, and story, written by Marc Laidlaw. The game was hugely influenced by Doom in story and otherwise. It’s naturally won many “Game of the Year” awards, and scored high in reviews, to say the least.

It involved the player taking the role of Gordon Freeman, a man in his late twenties, graduate from University of Innsbruck and MIT, and scientist involved in Theoretical Physics at the Black Mesa laboratory, an abandoned missile base out in the desert, in New Mexico, USA. Gordon gets involved in a teleportation experiment in the anomalous materials department, and “things go awry”, and creatures from another dimension start pouring out in to the base. Gordon’s main aim initially is to fight his way to the surface, and after that make his way to the Lambda Complex whilst fighting the aliens and zombies all the way, as well as marines and black-ops assassins whose main goal is to kill everyone, even the marines. You get to team up with security guards and other scientists who will help you along the way, and not to mention you are aided by your HEV suit which provides protection as well as access to your HUD, and a boost while jumping.

Many people think that the game used the Quake II engine, when in actual fact it was mainly a heavily modified Quake engine, with some elements from Quake II, called GoldSrc. The game also had no cutscenes and employed scripted sequences, unlike most FPSs of that time. It came with a level editor, WorldCraft, which was notoriously hard to use. Unlike most games, especially of the build era of the mid-late nineties, Gordon didn’t speak at all.

The game received two expansion packs for the PC and one for the PS2, namely Opposing Force, Blue Shift (originally meant o be packaged with the Dreamcast port), and Decay for the PS2. And the sequel, Half-Life 2, which I covered the other day, came along a few years later, taking about double the amount of time to develop, and has been followed by the episodes which chronicle what happens after the fall of City 17.

Half-Life has also spawned many mods over the years, some of which have since been ported to or recreated in HL2's Source Engine. Valve is also very pro-modding, and Gabe Newell claims that half of Valve is made up of former modders.

Interesting things and my experiences with the game:

• Memorable moments while playing the game many times over the years include the tram ride at the beginning through sections of the base, the Surface Tension level with the marines, and the ending with the G-man in the tram. A few of the earlier levels weren't really to my liking, and neither were some of the later levels either. Some of the best parts were in-between.

• Best weapon in the game, besides the crowbar- probably the MP5 (later M4A1 with the HDP), which could shoot grenades from the attached launcher, and probably the crossbow as well, which could kill most of the low to mid enemies with one shot.

• Favourite enemies were the marines, in all their different forms.

• The entire series contains double meanings when it comes to titles, such as Half-Life, Decay, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift.

• The lambda symbol almost looks like a crude drawing of an arm holding a crowbar. This I never really knew or thought about before.

• The scientist models that were pretty common (only about 4 all in all), came back in Half-Life 2 as Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance. The other 2 still need to be made into characters in HL2 as far as I know.

• The one variation of the security guard came back as Barney Calhoun in HL2.

GameStop Breaks the Rules…Again, Releases Games Early

GameStop broke the street release date for Modern Warfare 2 last week, without permission from evil publisher Activision. In defence of their actions, it was said that the top brass of GameStop gave the go-ahead and it was released early.

Now it seems they’ve done the same thing with Assassin’s Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 this week. The release dates for these two games were broken too. So, gamers probably aren’t complaining. They can get the game early. But publishers, developers, and other retailers are likely less than impressed, or pleased.

Then again, people hate Activision and Bobby Kotick as of late anyway, and the company made loads off of Modern Warfare 2, and not to mention a big fat truckload of pocket money for “Psykotick”.

GameStop always seeks to get the competitive edge over other retailers, at perhaps at any cost. Whether it’s releasing games earlier than the set release date, or letting GameStop employees play new games before selling them, so they’re classed as second hand; stuff that’s frowned upon by others. And second hand goods are what keep the retail chain going, according to reports.

To their credit, GameStop has come around to the fact that digital distribution is the way of the future, after analysts said that the company was doomed to shut down if it didn’t adapt. It’s now broadening its online capabilities as of this year.

Now people are talking about what devs can do to stop GameStop from ruining their plans as far as
release dates are concerned. It seems as though lately, even if a game is sold by a retailer earlier than planned, games like Left 4 Dead 2 are locked, so they can’t be played before that date. But can this actually stop GameStop and other retailers from doing this? Maybe the issue will be taken to court, and perhaps there will be some sort of penalty for committing the act, or even made illegal.

Oh, by the way, payback is a b1tch: a GameStop was robbed the other day, and 100 copies of Modern Warfare 2 were nabbed.

It seems there is justice in this world after all.

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New Jersey breaks street date for AC II and L4D2
MW2 was released early without permission from Activsion
Heist Nets 100 Copies of Modern Warfare 2 [Robbery]