Sunday, October 26, 2008

Halo 3: November Matchmaking Update




General Matchmaking
+Instances of September update maps (Boundless, Pit Stop, Sand Tarp and Epilogue) and their default counterparts are shuffled around and removed in some instances to remove some of the redundancies.


Social
+Social Slayer – Team Snipers and Team Shotty Snipers removed.

Ranked
+Team Slayer – Team Snipers and Team Shotty Snipers removed.
+Team Objective – Weighting for Multi Flag BR’s increased.
+Team Doubles – Anvil removed. The Pit replaced by Pit Stop in all variants.
+Squad Battle – Weighting on Heavy Sandtrap and Heavy Valhalla slightly reduced. Heavy Standoff removed.

DLC
+DLC FFA – Haunted Manor replaced with Infected Manor.

Hardcore
+Added Team Snipers – Ranked 4v4 playlist. Sniper Rifle spawns (no secondary weapons) on maps forged with Beam Rifles. Shotty Snipers present with a lower weighting.



Double EXP Weekends (Listed in order)
+Team Flag (Formerly known as 4th of July)
+Grifball
+Legendary Brawl
+Turkey Day*

7 on the 7th
+November’s 7 on the 7th will feature FFA gametypes on Blackout.

*Turkey Day
+Four days of tenuously Thanksgiving-themed FFA gametypes for 9 players:

Turkey Day Gametypes
+Wishbone Brawl: Score points by beating down other players with the oddball. 10 points to win.
+Black Friday: More slugs than hugs. Players spawn with Plasma Pistols and score points by beating down or assassinating other players. 25 points to win.
+Turkey Carvers: Those turkeys won’t slice themselves. Team Swords, point leader moves slowly (‘cause he ate too much). 25 points to win.
+Turkey Fiesta: It’s a party! Random primary and secondary weapons. Point leader is fat and slow, but we still love him. 25 points to win.
+Tryptophan: The day the turkeys… Returned. Infection. Turkeys move quickly. Last Pilgrim Standing can run pretty fast. Most kills after 4 rounds wins.

Friday, October 17, 2008

LittleBigPlanet Launch Delayed


PS3's next great game, LittleBigPlanet has been delayed one week due to a religious conflict. In a forum, a Muslim user noticed two quotes that are in the Quran, are being used in the game in a music track called "Swinging Safari." The user respectably asked for the two passages be removed, stating that it is offensive to blend pop music with a holy book. Sony has pulled LBP from store shelves, and said it'll be released October 27th, 2008.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Bioshock 2 Trailer

With 2K Boston's recent release of Bioshock for the PS3, they included a trailer for Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams. Here it is:

Portal: Still Alive

Released last year with the Orange Box, Portal received praise from gamers. It was challenging, humorous, and all together an enjoyable experience. Now, Valve will be releasing Portal: Still Alive, which will include the original Portal game and 14 additional challenging maps, 6 test chamber maps, and 12 new achievements.

Portal: Still Alive will be downloadable via Xbox Live for less than $20. Valve announced it in an interview with IGN for IGN's 45th Three Red Lights Podcast, that each map/achievement will cost roughly a $1 each, so expect P:SA to cost $12-15.

The additional maps won't be a continuation of the story, they're only puzzle maps. It'll be about 600MB, and will also feature online leaderboards.

Portal: Still Alive will release October 22nd, 2008, available to the US and Australia on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Xbox 360 Release Dates: October

Xbox 360:
-Oct 19th:
Rock Band 2: Special Edition
-Oct 20th:
Monopoly
-Oct 21st:
Dance Dance Revolution 3
Disney Sing It
Fable II
Fable II: Limited Edition
FarCry 2
FarCry 2: Limited Edition
Legend of Spyro: The Dawn of the Dragon
Midnight Club: Los Angelos
Legendary
Spiderman: Web of Shadows

-Oct 22nd
Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? Make the Grade!
-Oct 26th
Guitar Hero World Tour
-Oct 28th
Fallout 3
MotoGP 08
SBK: Superbike World Championship
Scene it? Box Office Smash
SCORE International Baja 1000
Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge


Gears of War 2 News: Horde Mode and more

Horde Mode:
Gears of War 2 will feature a new multiplayer game type known as "Horde Mode." 4 players will be thrown into a small map that must work together to survive until level 50. After all 4 players die, it's over. You're able to restart from the last stage, but you start in random locations and the scores are set back to 0. Of course, whoever gets the most kills will have their gamertag placed above the others in the scoreboard, but teamwork is essential.
After level 10 it's supposed to be turned up a notch. The Horde will start coming from all directions of the map in order to flank you and make whatever great system you and your buddies had seem so futile.

Unlockables:
You start with default MP characters, but there's more characters to unlock, through playing the campaign.
-Dizzy Wallin: Unlock by completing Act 1 on any difficulty
-Kantus: Unlock by completing Act 2 on any difficulty
-Tai Kaliso: Unlock by completing Act 3 on any difficulty
-Flame Grenadier: Unlock by completing Act 4 on any difficulty
-Skorge: Unlock by completing Act 5 on any difficulty

You can also unlock a few characters for Gears of War 2 by playing Gears of War 1.
-Complete Act 1 in “Gears of War:” Unlock Anthony Carmine multiplayer skin in “Gears of War 2”
-Find 10 COG tags in “Gears of War:” Unlock Minh Young Kim multiplayer skin in “Gears of War 2”
-Defeat RAAM in “Gears of War:” Unlock RAAM multiplayer skin in “Gears of War 2”

New Activities to play in the grave:
-Smoother cameras and the camera will automatically zoom in on the closest action
-A new "Ghost Camera" will allow you to freely move around the map
-You'll still be given the ability to follow behind your teammates
-There will also be an option to take screenshots using any of those cameras, there will also be a score system based upon the quality of your screenshot, and then you'll be able to upload them on gearsofwar.com

New Party System:
A new party system will let players party up and stay together, even after quitting and joining games.

What's Up?:

Epic is giving players of GoW2 the ability to contact and party up a lot easier with a new feature called Whats Up. With one button you'll be able to view all your friends and with the click of another you can invite all your friends to join you. You won't even have to pull up the Xbox Guide.

New MP Competitive Game Types:
-Guardian:
A modified version of Assassination, where players will have to protect their leader, and if they don't they will lose the ability to respawn.
-King of the Hill:
KotH was in Gears of War for the Windows, but is making a return to the consoles. If your team has the point, you won't respawn and will have to wait for a new point to spawn or the opposing team to take it if you're waiting to respawn. You will also have to stay within the hill to control it. Execution rules in effect.
-Wingman:
5 teams of 2 players each will compete to reach the set amount of kills to win. It's 1 point for a kill, and 1 point for each team that survives the round. Execution rules in effect.
-Submission: Players must down an opponent and take him as a living shield, and then will have to take the hostage back to a designated point.

Maps:
10 new maps, all 10 will feature all MP gametypes.
-Avalanche
-Blood Drive
-Day One
-Hail
-Jacinto
-Pavilion
-River
-Ruins
-Security
-Stasis

Plus the Flashback Map Pack will come with every copy of "Gears of War 2" starting with the first to last copy sold. The FBMP will feature 5 maps from the original "Gears of War" to download free of charge. Each map's graphics will be updated, and the FBMP consists of:
-Canals
-Gridlock
-Mansion
-Subway
-Tyro Station

Golden Gun:
A token will be available exclusive to the limited edition of Gears 2, which will unlock a gold lancer assault rife.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Bioshock Review


Bioshock

Platform - Xbox 360

Developer – 2K Boston

Publisher – 2K Games

Released – August 21st 2007

Written by Brian

Bioshock is a first person survival role playing game that puts you into the eyes of an unfortunate man named Jack. It’s based on a fictional underwater city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean called Rapture during 1960. When you arrive at Rapture you find out it had once been a marvelous city, but had recently turned into a nightmare.

You start off with your plane slamming down into the mid-Atlantic, and you go to take shelter at Rapture. As you journey further and further throughout Rapture, trying to survive, you unravel the mystery about how this city had turned to to hell. Your target throughout most of the game is a man named Andrew Ryan, the founder and the overseer of Rapture.

It’s a hard world to survive in the world of Bioshock, but you have many things to help you endure Rapture. You can hack security cameras, turrets, and bots to help defend and fight with you, or you can hack vending machines which will unlock items for you to buy, and more. You’re given a total of 70 plasmids which include incinerating, freezing, controlling, and enraging your enemies, there are also many more plasmids which help you hack, fight, and survive. You can set up traps and mines, and then lure your enemies into a deadly surprise that will leave them into shock, literally.

The graphics are beautiful, scary, unique, and amazing. When you first take your trip down to Rapture in a small sub, the city looks enchanting and stunning. But when you enter the city, it’s very dark, and creepy, and the graphics play a huge role in presenting that experience to you.

The sound is so perfect, it plays the biggest role in taking you away into the world of Bioshock. The way your enemies dragged their hooks along the ground and the very silent scenes with just enough sounds to creep you out when you were just waiting for something to leap out of the shadows and attack you just send chills down your spine. Without such a great deliverance of sound, this game wouldn’t be anything similar to the Bioshock everyone knows and loves.

The game is roughly 20 hours long if you take your time, with an alternate ending depending what decisions you make. Besides from that though, there are no unlockables for beating the game, and most would only play this one time through.

Graphics – 10/10

Sound – 10/10

Gameplay – 10/10

Lasting Appeal – 8/10

Story – 10/10

Overall Score – 9.6/10