Category Archives: Video Games
Hitman: Killer of Badass Hit-Nuns
The great Tobuscus returns with another literal trailer, this time set to Hitman Absolution. I haven’t seen the real trailer, but I don’t need to, not after seeing Tobuscus’ latest masterpiece. He’s quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite Internet acts!
Video Game Trailer Extravaganza!
The video game industry had their huge E3 convention thingy this past weekend, and a flood of news and trailers has come pouring out. I don’t want to cover every single one, or each one individually, so I thought I’d just share with you all some games I am definitely looking forward to, thanks to E3.
No reports yet on the X-Box 720 or the Playstation 4, but I’m in no rush. I’m still very happy with my X-Box 360, except for the disc reading error it’s suddenly suffering from. Anyway, on with the games!
South Park: The Stick of Truth
A South Park sword & sorcery role-playing game, in which you get to design your own character. How awesome is this? Fully voiced by the guys from South Park, with the gameplay that looks like the actual show. This makes me giddy all over.
Watch Dogs
Those are some of the best graphics I’ve ever seen, and everyone was saying the exact same thing when Grand Theft Auto IV came out several years ago. But guess what happens after several years? Developers learn to use the hardware better! Since GTA4 set the stage for a beautifully-rendered New York City, Watch Dogs by Ubisoft is apparently going to take that baton and run it even further. This might be one of those games were it’s just as much fun to play as it is just to walk around the city. Not that I really have any idea what it’s about, other than what that trailer tells us. Still, awesome trailer. Watch until the end, the action picks up nicely.
Lego City Undercover
Oddly, Grand Theft Auto 5 didn’t make an appearance at E3. But who needs it when you’ve got a Lego version of GTA! This appears to be a free roaming city where you play some kind of Lego cop, who can change into different costumes to accomplish different tasks. Neat. Sadly, it’s for WiiU only, and I’m not a Nintendo guy. But still, it looks neat.
Star Wars 1313
I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, so it doesn’t knock my socks off that there’s going to be a new Star Wars video game franchise. There are already like a million of them, after all. But maybe this one will be different. It’s supposed to be a gritty, mature take on the Star Wars universe, putting you in the shoes of a brand new bounty hunter character fighting organized crime in the depths of Coruscant. I’ve hard of worse premises. The graphics again look pretty cool, but the gameplay does not impress, especially not compared to some of these other trailers. Plus no familiar faces, so poop on that!
So any games I’ve missed that you’re excited about? Let me know in the comments!
More Revolutionary War Goodness
Sweet googily moogily! This past weekend’s E3 video game convention has delivered some great previews (more on that later), but I have to say that some of the best are these two videos for Assassin’s Creed III. Holy wowzers, people, these are absolutely gorgeous. Between now and the release date of Oct. 30, I need to hurry up and beat Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and buy an HDTV so that I can do this game justice.
First is just a long trailer, but it kicks so much ass.
I hope I’m not the only one that thinks the white assassin robe/hoodie still looks horribly out of place in whatever setting, be it the streets of Rome or some snow-covered fort. You’d think the guy would want to blend in. Still, Connor is amazing! And George Washington clearly approves!
The next is a clip that features actual gameplay, though a lot of it seems pre-rendered, as if the combat involves a lot of pre-scripted movement. Like instead of ‘Press B’ to slash with your tomahawk, you ‘Press B’ to block a weapon, slash with your tomahawk, choke hold the guy and then break his neck. The latter would be kind of dull.
But the gameplay segments of running through the snowy woods and using the trees and cliff-faces for Assassin’s Creed brand of parkour are amazing!
Skyrim to Feature Vampires, Vampire-Killers
Looks like I’ll soon have to break out my old Skyrim game again for some sweet DLC. Don’t game makers know that I’m already pretty swamped when it comes to video games? Why do they have to release this amazing trailer for the upcoming Dawnguard expansion pack?
Boy howdy, that looks like fun! What my intrepid mind can piece together is that the new story mission is going to involve some kind of pack of super vampires who can transform into some kind of winged beast monster. Vampirism is already a thing in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as it has been in most Elder Scrolls games. Basically your character can contract vampirism the same way normal people can, by being infected by a vampire. I haven’t experienced it myself with my characters, but you basically get hurt by sunlight and have a few other vampire-esque traits. Likewise, Skyrim also introduced werewolfism, which allows your character to become a werewolf and transform into a monster!
It was pretty sweet.
So I hope this new vampire transformation is equally sweet. Though I think my valiant orc warrior Tannenbum is going to join the titular Dawnguard, who seem to be the people who hunt and kill the vampires. Though that doesn’t necessarily make them good guys, mind you. I don’t know this for sure, but it seems like the DLC is going to be based around choosing either the Dawnguard or the vampires. I look forward to the excitement.
When I play these role-playing games, I really get into the storyline of my character. And for the same reason Tannenbaum never became a werewolf, I doubt I’ll have him become a super vampire. It’s just not who he is. That’s why I created a second character who could complete the Companion/werewolf storyline. Because becoming a werewolf (or vampire) is akin to picking an entirely different race. I didn’t want to get werewolf in my orc, if that makes any sense.
Either way, it looks like Tannenbaum is soon going to have to come out of retirement. And here I’d had him living in a nice mansion in Solitude, living off his great wealth and his membership in the Bard College.
New DC Superhero Fighting Game Gets Nasty
Remember when Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe came out, and everybody was whining about how the goody two-shoes DC superheroes couldn’t do the bloody fatalities? Well apparently DC Comics and NetherRealm, the makers of Mortal Kombat, heard those cries and have designed a new fighting game where the Justice League superheroes are evil, so now they can get as brutal as we gaming nerds might want!
Behold Injustice: Gods Among Us, the new fighting game announced today that is apparently only going to feature DC superheroes and villains. Which is awesome. Too often video game makers seem to think we want non-superhero characters mixed in with our fighting games. Anyone remember Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects? For your sake, I hope you don’t. Anyway, this new game is going to feature “at least as many” characters as Mortal Kombat, so that means dozens. And it’s going to feature interactive battle zones, like the Batcave and other familiar sights.
Burn baby, burn!
The roster so far includes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Harley Quinn and Solomon Grundy. I expect we’ll get more announced as we get closer to the release date sometime in 2013. Of course, I demand to see Robin in the game, but that might just be me.
This game looks pretty cool, as far as I’m concerned. I liked the last Mortal Kombat game, and this one looks very similar in play style. Granted, I mostly played Mortal Kombat for the story (and Smoke, my favorite character), but it was a fun fighting game to play with friends for a week or two. That’s exactly what I’d expect this new game to be, just a fun little fighter to spend a few weeks on and nothing more. If I still had a Blockbuster near me, it’d make for a great rental.
Wonder Woman gonna have to cut a bitch?
The trailer looks cool, with a lot of well-done animation. If this game looks as good and plays as good as Mortal Kombat, it’ll be a fine game. I’m not at all bothered by the idea of turning the DC superheroes evil in order to fit them into a fighting game, or whatever the plan is there. It’s not going to warp my fragile little geek mind if Superman now burns people to a crisp with his heat vision. It’s just a game, one that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Though that is one gripe. What’s the point of this game? Why make a video game with its own standalone continuity? Why not connect it to the New 52 comics? Or the Young Justice/Justice League movie style animation? But then I suppose Warner Bros. has always been absolutely ridiculous when it comes to uniting their different continuities.
Also, what’s up with the name? Injustice: Gods Among Us? That name could be applied to any video game of any genre starring any characters whatsoever. Nothing about it says ‘Justice League’ or even ‘superheroes’ to me. They should have just called it Justice League: Gods Among Us. At least then people would have some idea what it’s about.
Or why not at least ‘Injustice League’?
Henchman-4-Hire 