By way of a preview in Game Informer magazine comes the first solid details of the upcoming PS3-exclusive beat ‘em up – God of War 3.

The preview reveals that the franchise will continue beyond this game, but that the trilogy will have some kind of resolution. It states that series protagonist Kratos is four times as detailed – 20,000 polygons over God of War 2’s 5,000 polys. Interestingly, players will begin the game with many abilities from previous games unlocked and new weapons will provide more contrast to the standard Blades of Chaos.

Taking advantage of the PS3, up to 50 enemies can appear on-screen and can now coordinate attacks, arrange themselves in formations and jump on Kratos to weigh him down. Titans will also be enhanced, presented as “living, breathing characters,” and some monsters can now be controlled.

The game is due out sometime this year.

Atlus seems to have an excellent business model. They focus heavily on bringing games over to the USA from Japan. The latest title that they’ve secured the rights to is another of the many turn-based strategy games that are much beloved in Japan. You won’t be fighting to regain a stolen throne, questing for glory or any of the more common plotlines; instead you will be controlling a Wisp named Maria who reanimates the souls of fallen knights in a castle to battle her foe, Astart.

In Knights in the Nightmare, which was released in Japan in September last year, action sequences punctuate the more standard strategy gameplay. As with most strategy titles you can customize your party with over a hundred playable characters from seven different classes of knights. Further strategizing is possible by combining multiple souls into one character. Play through the somewhat unusual game and you’ll unlock a second gameplay mode, where you take on the role of the former antagonist. The game releases on June second.

I know hyperbole like that is bound to get me in trouble.  Any kind of hyperbole requires a whole lot of backup, otherwise its utterer comes off looking like a rabble-rouser, pointless fanboy, or, worst of all, a politician.

As someone who becomes more convinced with every passing title that Bethesda cannot turn out a BAD game (let’s not bring horse armor into this), Fallout 3 for me rapidly proved to be a whole lot more than “Oblivion with Guns”, as the skeptics protest.

Fallout 3, in case you don’t know, puts you several decades into the future–somewhere around the 2200s–and smack in the middle of a heavily nuked Washington DC and environs, now referred to as the Capital Wasteland.  Filled with mutants, Super Mutants, random thugs known as Raiders, and a whole slew of other baddies, you roam the land, doing good or ill as you see fit, helping the survivors to reclaim forgotten civilization or trashing it all for your own personal profit.  Either way.

With features like the oft-maligned VATS system allowing you to target specific body parts of your attackers and the multi-function Pip Boy on your wrist, Fallout 3 gives you an extraordinarily immersive game with a vast array of downloadables on the way.  In fact, one such downloadable, Operation: Anchorage, has already been covered here.

Oh, sure…it’s not perfect.  The game has the nerve to actually cut you off after beating the main quest instead of allowing you to continue, and you’d think that Bethesda learned enough from Oblivion to just let Fallout 3 work similarly.  And indeed, overuse of the VATS system can make the game a lot duller than it could be.  But I remind those reading that the VATS system is totally optional, and not necessary for gameplay.  Indeed, there’s a lot to be said for the fun of plinking Raiders with a sniper rifle from up on a cliff, and you can’t do that in VATS mode.

But these fairly small troubles aside, Fallout 3 remains a highly immersive experience with lots of great plot and plenty of fun things to do and see.  Try the Lincoln Memorial sometime–it’s still there.  Just watch out for the fifty pounds of irony waiting inside; a bunch of slavers live there now.

You never really expect a casual game to mean much of anything. And yet, with Kongregate Games’ Death Row, I managed to find just that: a meaningful casual game.

You play what I can only guess is some kind of counselor in charge of notorious terrorist / bomber Hector Van Daemon. Your job is to prove Hector’s innocence, as well as rehabilitate him, and do it all in the two weeks before Van Daemon is to be executed by the state. You have several duties available to you–you can interact with Van Daemon by playing games or engaging him in activities or even through a fairly buggy chat program, you can put Van Daemon to work to earn money, and you can take that money and buy upgrades for Van Daemon’s jail cell. These upgrades–including a TV and computer–might seem frivolous, but they’re actually necessary to find the various clues scattered around Van Daemon’s jail cell.

I had a lot of problems with the game, frankly. Control was a major issue, and the supporting documentation was pretty sparse in terms of just how to improve things like Van Daemon’s health and work ethic. Thankfully, I discovered them myself, and the second game got a whole lot smoother. And if I never watch another man settle onto a toilet with accompanying fart noises again, it’ll be too soon.

But there was something unusually engaging about Death Row. I was actually beginning to sympathize with Van Daemon’s position–an innocent man railroaded by a shoddy trial (they actually describe it as such), steadily trying to improve himself and prove his innocence is actually a position that most of us can identify with. We don’t wish such a thing to happen to anyone, and having the opportunity to help save Hector Van Daemon from his fate is somehow empowering.

In fact, when I managed to find all the pieces of evidence proving Van Daemon’s innocence, and we sent them off to the governor’s office, and his release was STILL denied due to his “dubious character”, I shared in Hector’s rage. He was innocent! We could PROVE it! And yet somehow the system was still making arbitrary decisions about the content of his character and keeping him locked up? This was sick! This was a GRAPHIC miscarriage of justice! This was…

…this was…a video game. All I had to do was press the big red X on the Firefox window I was using to play the game and Hector Van Daemon would cease to exist until I wanted to try again. And yet, somehow, despite myself, I was still identifying with this fictional character so thoroughly that I suffered along with him.

This is the mark of a good movie–allowing you to identify with the characters so deeply you can share in their emotions. It separates the boundary between fiction and reality, obscures it, sucks you into the story and allows you to experience it, albeit in a strictly vicarious fashion. I was amazed. I’d yet to experience a casual game that could do such a thing.

For this sheer uniqueness of experience, I can do little else but recommend this game to you wholeheartedly. Enjoy it. Let it pull you in, and enjoy your two weeks with Hector Van Daemon.

Michael Phelps, 8 time Olympic Gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics (as if you didn’t know that), smokin’ bongs, A-Rod, the worlds highest paid athelete, takin’ steroids. What next?

Apparently nothing on Activisions end, who has recently announced they will not follow suit of companies like Kelloggs in dropping endorsement deals for the two atheletes. And if you didn’t know both Michael Phelps and A-Rod star in Activision’s commercials for Guitar Hero: World Tour.

However, Activision make it known that the current ad campaign, which includes the above commercial, is coming to an end soon. Way to sneak outta’ there, Activision.

Read (NY Daily News)

We learned a few days ago that a DLC pack for Valve’s Left 4 Dead was on it’s way but we didn’t know what it would be priced or when it would come.

Well, we still don’t know exactly when it’s coming (other than spring), but Valve has recently announced that the ‘Survival Pack’ will be completely free of charge. Now that’s thinkin’ of the community Valve!

Included in the pack is an new Survival mode, which explains itself, along with new campaigns for the games Versus mode. We’ll keep you updated as more info trickles out.

Read (ThatVideoGameBlog)

Activision has recently announced via their earnings call that they haven’t made enough money yet so they’ve turned to the Guitar Hero franchise.

The series will be milked even further with a Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits that will be released later this year. But what will it be? Well, all of the best hits compiled into one and adapted for Guitar Hero World Tour band play, of course.

Listen Activision, I appreciate you really catering to a dedicated community, but honestly. By now, the Guitar Hero series is probably well on its way to setting world records on the most games ever released in a series. Maybe not, but according to Wikipedia there are currently 13 Guitar Hero games, including mobile games. That’s a lot.

It’s all over the news; the economy sucks, WE KNOW, but not for Activision Blizzard. The company responsible for franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Guitar Hero, have recently gotten some numbers and, if you’re the jealous type, look away now.

In 2008 alone, Activision Blizzard raked in $5 billion, with $429 million of that during the holidays making it a record year for the company.

And, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, god knows how many Guitar Hero titles, and possibly Starcraft 2 just over the horizon, 2009 is shaping up to be an even bigger year for the mega publisher.

Read (Kotaku)

If you’re big on FPS games you’ll agree, GoldenEye revolutionized the genre on the consoles for the better. Well here we are now, 10million and one Bond games later, with some dissapointing news.

Activision has recently announced that a new Bond racing title won’t hit the shelves until 2010. But why Activision?

Well, according to CFO Thomas Tippl, they are avoiding competition with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which, we all know, is sure to make a killing. Smart move Activision.

Read (Joystiq)

Most games from Lionhead Studios, especially games involving Peter Molyneaux, remind me of an old political cartoon from the Clinton presidency.  On the left, Clinton is seated before sheet music labeled “Promises” with his saxophone, a skein of notes visibly emerging from it.  On the right, he’s seated before sheet music labeled “Delivery”, this time playing a kazoo.

And indeed, Lionhead has once again brought me way more sizzle than steak with their release of Fable II, the game Molyneaux swore up and down would blow Fable away.

On that point, he’s right.  Fable II does blow Fable away.  It has a whole new generation’s worth of graphical processing power to play with, a metric ton of mini games and several new characters inhabiting a storyline that will encompass decades in a world that will change visibly with every decision you make.

The only problem, of course, is that while Molyneux and company were building this massive world, they forgot that video games are supposed to have this thing called PLOT.

On the surface, Fable II looks to have plot in abundance, with you playing as a hero of legend who doesn’t know it yet gone in search of various other heroes of legend.  They will in turn lend their powers to make you a kind of SUPER hero of legend.  And once you have become this magnificent figure you will then go out and defeat the villain who killed your sister about ten years prior.

Said villain, meanwhile, is visibly trying to rebuild the Death Star.  You think I’m kidding there, but I’m really not–Fable II’s big bad is out to rebuild a gigantic spire-like facility (okay, so it’s not the same SHAPE.) that has mystical powers sufficient to reshape the world according to his own twisted whims.  He’s stocked said facility with a seemingly infinite number of identically dressed lesser baddies (if they were wearing white I’d swear they were stormtroopers), some of which you’ll have to fight for a few minutes.
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