So far there haven’t been many concrete details about what’s happening for the Mass Effect sequel. Promises of revamped gameplay and a stirring storyline are far from actual news about what we’ll be seeing and whether or not Shepard survived the events of the original. Though all the biggest game announcements are waiting for E3, Bioware is drumming up attendees for their booth and general buzz about the game.

Despite the many RPG stylings of the original it remained quite heavily combat focused and the developers are promising a lot more content in this area. There’ll be more variety of weapons, including some heavier weapons systems and the ability to hinder your opponents by blowing off limbs. There’ll also be a new vehicle which they say controls better than the Mako.

There will of course be even more planets, locations and alien species to further flesh out the already detailed universe. Players will travel to a Krogan planet, an Asari planet which is compared to Coruscant from the Star Wars series and even an ‘anti-citadel’. Apparently you will play as Shepard, though it isn’t specified for how long. There’ll be familiar faces, places and items although depending on your choices major supporting characters can and will die.

The story still involves Shepard’s quest to destroy the Reapers, but additional events will involve the Cerebus corporation and its enigmatic leader. Bioware will reveal several things at E3, including the fate of Shepard, how the new travel/exploration systems will work and who you ultimately play is, meaning that even if Shepard is alive he’s not going to be your main character.

Weekly Nintendo Update is unexciting, but includes a clock
DJ Hero controller spotted with cross-fader attachment
Aussies getting sweet Gears of War Xbox 360 bundle
New Infamous PS3 bundle in UK
Sony halving amount of suppliers
Bionic Commando Game Review–Taking Fun And Completely Destroying It
Ghostwire lets DSi owners hunt ghosts
Capcom releases Resident Evil 5 sales numbers, close to 5 million
Blizzard giving away Blizzcon tickets through fansites
Modern Warfare 2 trailer
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 demo now live
Batman: Arkham Asylum Poison Ivy trailer
Delta Force: Xtreme 2 demo now available
2029 Online alpha testing starts today
Get free Rock Band songs with Pepsi
No price cut plans for DSi, says Iwata
Ninja Council 4 goes gold, hitting shelves June 2nd
Resident Evil: Director’s Cut hits PSN next Thursday
Direct2Drive sale, 50 percent off 2K games

Nintendo has just released details on exactly what this week’s update, spanning the DSiWare, WiiWare and Virtual Console services, includes.

Well, most importantly we have Clay Fighter for the Virtual Console which made its original debut on the Sega Genesis in 1994. This is the classic 2D fighter in which the developers photographed actual clay models and then digitized them to make for the game’s graphics.

Other than that, we have ADVENTURE ISLAND The Beginning and BUBBLE BOBBLE Plus! for WiiWare and American Popstar: Road to Celebrity and Photo Clock for DSiWare. Yeah, we weren’t kidding when we said this weeks update is unexciting.

You can read more about the update including the pricing for all above mentioned titles in the press release after the break. READ ON »

We first saw the turntable inspired controller for DJ Hero earlier this month but it was only half of the controller not to mention just a rendering.

Well, during a E3 preview special aired on spike there was a brief segment with the hostess, Amanda McKay, holding the full controller cross-fader and all. Even with the missing counterpart it’s still had to determine which game has the cooler controller, DJ Hero, or Scratch: The Ultimate DJ.

Either or, Activision says that DJ Hero is set to drop sometime before the end of this year.

Read (VG247)

Apparently Australians have yet to embrace Gears of War like the rest of the world, which is why Microsoft is releasing a special Xbox 360 Gears of War bundle, which includes both Gears of War and Gears of War 2, packaged in a sweet box. However, the console itself is of the plain ol’ white Pro variety. It’ll be available on June 4 for $450 AUD, equivalent of $350 USD. Not a bad deal.

Sony is releasing a new PS3 bundle in the UK, equipped with the 80 GB PS3 and a copy of the highly anticipated Infamous.

The bundle was revealed on Amazon.co.uk, where it’s retailing for GBP 279, or $445 USD. Sony has yet to comment or “officially announce” the bundle, so it’s unknown whether it will be released elsewhere in the world.

The PS3 is in dire need for a price cut, but that would be ever worse for parent company Sony, which already loses a hefty sum of money on every PS3 sold.

One of the ways to save money is to cut the amount of suppliers needed for a PS3 console, which is exactly what Sony is doing. The company has revealed
that it plans to cut the amount of suppliers from 2,500 to 1,200 next year in order to save costs. While this is done across all divisions, not just the PS3, it will certainly mean cost savings for the console as well as Sony’s other electronics.

At the risk of dating myself horribly, I remember when Bionic Commando, now available for PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360,  was an arcade game.  Like in actual arcades.  In case you haven’t seen one lately, arcades were places where people would go to play video games.  Sure, they had video game systems at home–most of them did, anyway–but arcades were the place to go to play the newest, the latest, and the best.  They even had specialized interfaces–racing games would offer you a molded bucket seat with a steering wheel in front, and so on.  But enough of my geriatric doddering–the takeaway here is that I remember Bionic Commando when it didn’t look like a cookie-cutter of EVERY OTHER GAME ON THE MARKET.

This is a direct sequel to the original Bionic Commando, as well as to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, so of course some advancements are to be expected.  The plotline even manages to dovetail successfully with the original: ten years after the original, the “bionic commandos”, of which there were apparently more than one, are facing a sizable public backlash.  Hunted like dogs and in most cases killed, few people remember the legendary Super Joe who once saved the world. But recently, pro-bionic terrorists set off a “weapon of mass destruction” in the middle of Ascension City and proceeded to occupy the rest.  Now, it’s up to Nathan Spencer, former bionic commando, to swing in and retake the city.

Seriously—when was this giant rush started to make almost every game a shooter in which your perspective was either perched over a gun barrel or staring at some guy’s—or on rare occasions some girl’s—pixelated ass?  That may well be the biggest problem with Bionic Commando: sheer mind-numbing unoriginality.  Sure, the plotline’s great but the gameplay is so cookie-cutter as to be downright nightmarish.

The graphics and sound are just fine—if you like technical superiority in your games, then you won’t be disappointed here.  In this case, sadly, it’s just pretty wrapping over a lousy package.

Though in the end, it may be my own memories that are to blame here.  I didn’t have much fun with this game because it wasn’t the Bionic Commando I knew and loved.  Instead I got some pretty third-person shooter with some good action but some really buggy portions too.  I remember when the Bionic Arm would clamp onto nearly anything and let me swing.  I certainly DON’T, however, remember the Bionic Arm being useful in only a handful of situations, and the rest of the time, the arm simply refusing to attach.  It’s like the Delorean of bionic implants—sure, it LOOKS awesome but it really doesn’t perform all that well.  What point is there in only being able to attach onto a limited handful of surfaces?  Bionic Commando, with only a few exceptions, is basically almost two games—a shooter, and a timed button press round of swinging.

And even the timed button presses of swinging don’t always ensure success—more than once my swing indicator told me “Great Swing!”, but what that lying bastard failed to tell me was that it wasn’t good ENOUGH, as I fell into the abyss well short of where I’d intended to land.

So yes, I’m very disappointed with this second-rate retread purporting to be a sequel of a game I enjoyed so very much way back when.  Maybe my memories make me biased, but one thing’s clear, this is an unworthy successor.

Now here’s a game really showcasing the DSi’s new capabilities — Recently announced by A Different Game is Ghostwire, a game that utilizes the DSi’s cameras to allow gamers to hunt ghosts that appear to be in the actual room as you can see in hte above csreenshot.

The gameplay focuses around using the DSi as a “portal to the astral plane” where you will find and collect different ghosts that you encounter and then solve the mystery of why they have appeared, remedy it and, you know, let them R.I.P.

There’s currently no word when Ghostwire is to hit shelves but when it does I’m going to be dangerously tempted to purchase a DSi.

Read (Kotaku)

Resident Evil 5 was released a little over 2 months ago and recieved generally positive feedback from the critics but we were left in the dark in terms of sales numbers until now — During the Reuters Global Technology Summit held in Tokyo last week Capcom CFO Kazuhiko Abe made a statement that the game has sold around 4.9 million copies since its March 13th release date.

About 4.4 million, Abe says, were sold during the game’s release month with the additional ~500,00 being sold in April. Despite being a rather huge drop in sales Capcom apparently expected it saying they only plan to sell another ~500,000 copies through March 31st, 2010.

Kotaku notes the fact that games with a “hardcore, existing audience” such as Resident Evil 5 sell well in their first few months but once all said hardcore fans actually purchase it sales drop dramatic amounts. Now I’m just hoping to see Resident Evil 5 for like $20 at Gamestop, then I’ll be happy.