MOVIES LOLZROFLMAO
Yeah, there's like an orgasm of movies coming out. Shit.. new Star Trek, new Transformers, and last but not least, new Terminator complete with f**in Christian Bale. All ye trailers below.
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Terminator: Salvation
(Oh poo, I just found out embedding of this trailer was disabled by request. LAME. Well you can go look it up yourself)
I know this is a gaming blog, but the important thing all ye folks must remember, the transition between game to movie and movie to game has always been like a knife through hot butter. The plot devices, the characters, the cutscenes, the cinematics, the interactivity, and the non-interactivity, draws parallels between the both forms of art. You just have to look at shit like Metal Gear Solid and you know that games will be as compelling as movies were in the past for people. Heads up, new Gears of War movie in the works too, and here's the awesome part, VERY LITTLE CGI. Apparently, whoever the director making the movie (can't remember his name) was, he said he wanted to make the Gears of War movie as realistic as possible.
In other news, I got to try the multiplayer beta of the new Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2. It is... alright lolz. I know I know, i havent' been very impressable (is that even a word?) of late. Played FEAR 2, didn't think much of it, played DoW 2, didn't think much of it. Perhaps it was just that the MINION isn't a very high-powered computer so I couldn't very well be impressed by the low level of graphics in DoW 2. But what about the gameplay mechanics?
Things have definetly changed. in this age of ultra hyper micromanagement (think of the new Starcraft 2 coming out), DoW 2 has taken it one step further by stripping away all that base building shit. There's only one, your headquarters, and your droppod landing pad. The only thing you build are your troops, and the one or two vehicles, and of course, your dreadnoughts (if you were Space Marines as I always am). You amass your army slowly and then you take 'em out to kill some people.
Company of Heroes engine at work here, you can see the level of detail in the textures, and it made me laugh when my vehicle's "engine" was "damaged", and they explicitly display that warning in big red, the same way it does in CoH, when some Panzer blows a hole in your little mini tank. Heroes, or rather the Commanders of the battlefield now have more devastating powers, their more akin to Warcraft 3 type heroes now, what with them being able to gain more powerful abilities and amass awesome weaponry. The difference being instead of it all being levelled up, you purchase all these upgrades. The cool thing then is that not only do you have to be a smart tactician, you have to be fast too, in amassing all those waypoints, or territory marks. Those are still around, after all, how are they going to measure currency?
The two things are noticed that was interesting about the game was first of all, before the game starts, you have to choose your hero, and each race (Space Marine, Ork, Tyrranid, Eldars) had three heroes. Since I only played with Space Marines so far, you could either have your hardcore fighting unit (can't remember his name), the Librarian, or the Healer dude. They were all there in the first DoW although you could recruit all of them at the same time. It looks to me you're going to have to make a choice in DoW 2 and your choice will affect the tactics on the battlefield. In my short time with the demo (I haven't the time to keep playing yet), I tried the fighting guy with his massive warhammer, and he's kinda shitty in my opinion.
Or maybe I'm just crap with RTS, but he doesn't really stand a chance running up against firefights. It says his warhammer is good against infantry but if the enemy (I played with CPU only, although it is a multiplayer demo meaning I could play against other people, but I'm pretty noob at RTS) has a small army, he could literally get cut down before he touched the first rank. Dreadnoughts are awesome still as ever, essentially meatshields absorbing so much enemy fire and still being able to stand.
DoW was never about variety with units, they all looked and did pretty much the same things with a novel addition or two, like jumppacks and chainsaw blades, or those Terminator dudes with their big sticks and shields, but it seems to me the game has been stripped down to the core units, that will balance the gameplay, and also allow for some very refined tactics. You send Terminators into a small group of lowly infantry, it's gotta be very good for you, in the same way, you send a hero unit up against a Dreadnought, well... I wonder. Although I did send a hero up against an enemy half-track thing (it was a Space Marine tank thing) and it actually destroyed it single-handedly.
I always liked the visceral intensity of DoW, even more so than CoH, but they are essentially two different games. One is all about the bloodshed and the mind-blowing awesomeness of space war, and the other is all about the slow, realism that will blow your mind when you actually score a hard-earned victory. But DoW 2 seems to meld all of that into one. The game feels a lot slower than its predecessor, and perhaps it's for the better.
For now, I can safely say this game will probably do very well against the slew of new RTSs coming out like Starcraft 2, or Empire: Total War. People are going to be long-time fans of this reiteration because of the fact that tactics are heavily inputted, but still keep things fairly no-nonsense when there isnt' all that base building to do. Personally I like having no bases to build. Just build the troops and keep sending them to their death. Oh, and the Hero unit, when he dies, a huge revive button appears over his corpse and you have to hit it for him to return to base. I don't know what happens if you don't click it, lol, but I assume it's not pretty.
Well, I can't say much more because I only had about half an hour with the thing before I stopped.
I also got World of Goo, but I haven't played that long enough to talk about it either. But from the first few levels I've fiddled around with, the game's definetly got interesting qualities. Everything is so peaceful in comparison to all the hardcore shooters I've been playing, little gobs of ... well, goo, squirming around a little sticky network, until you pull one up and then it creates a new frame, and slowly you build it up as high as you can until it gets sucked into a little pipe Mario-style.
The only gripe I have about that game so far is that I can't seem to change resolution option. it feels all 800 x 600 when I want it bigger, or at least windowed for a sharper res. Ah well, griping at indie games won't get anybody anywhere.
Speaking of Mario, hoped you guys liked the new webcomic site lol.
That's all for now. Only just over 2 weeks left to go before my new computer, and I am getting real excited about the prospect of playing all my games on higher settings, especially Left 4 Dead. Immersion here I come.
Star Trek
Click to viewTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Terminator: Salvation
(Oh poo, I just found out embedding of this trailer was disabled by request. LAME. Well you can go look it up yourself)
I know this is a gaming blog, but the important thing all ye folks must remember, the transition between game to movie and movie to game has always been like a knife through hot butter. The plot devices, the characters, the cutscenes, the cinematics, the interactivity, and the non-interactivity, draws parallels between the both forms of art. You just have to look at shit like Metal Gear Solid and you know that games will be as compelling as movies were in the past for people. Heads up, new Gears of War movie in the works too, and here's the awesome part, VERY LITTLE CGI. Apparently, whoever the director making the movie (can't remember his name) was, he said he wanted to make the Gears of War movie as realistic as possible.
In other news, I got to try the multiplayer beta of the new Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2. It is... alright lolz. I know I know, i havent' been very impressable (is that even a word?) of late. Played FEAR 2, didn't think much of it, played DoW 2, didn't think much of it. Perhaps it was just that the MINION isn't a very high-powered computer so I couldn't very well be impressed by the low level of graphics in DoW 2. But what about the gameplay mechanics?
Things have definetly changed. in this age of ultra hyper micromanagement (think of the new Starcraft 2 coming out), DoW 2 has taken it one step further by stripping away all that base building shit. There's only one, your headquarters, and your droppod landing pad. The only thing you build are your troops, and the one or two vehicles, and of course, your dreadnoughts (if you were Space Marines as I always am). You amass your army slowly and then you take 'em out to kill some people.
Company of Heroes engine at work here, you can see the level of detail in the textures, and it made me laugh when my vehicle's "engine" was "damaged", and they explicitly display that warning in big red, the same way it does in CoH, when some Panzer blows a hole in your little mini tank. Heroes, or rather the Commanders of the battlefield now have more devastating powers, their more akin to Warcraft 3 type heroes now, what with them being able to gain more powerful abilities and amass awesome weaponry. The difference being instead of it all being levelled up, you purchase all these upgrades. The cool thing then is that not only do you have to be a smart tactician, you have to be fast too, in amassing all those waypoints, or territory marks. Those are still around, after all, how are they going to measure currency?
The two things are noticed that was interesting about the game was first of all, before the game starts, you have to choose your hero, and each race (Space Marine, Ork, Tyrranid, Eldars) had three heroes. Since I only played with Space Marines so far, you could either have your hardcore fighting unit (can't remember his name), the Librarian, or the Healer dude. They were all there in the first DoW although you could recruit all of them at the same time. It looks to me you're going to have to make a choice in DoW 2 and your choice will affect the tactics on the battlefield. In my short time with the demo (I haven't the time to keep playing yet), I tried the fighting guy with his massive warhammer, and he's kinda shitty in my opinion.
Or maybe I'm just crap with RTS, but he doesn't really stand a chance running up against firefights. It says his warhammer is good against infantry but if the enemy (I played with CPU only, although it is a multiplayer demo meaning I could play against other people, but I'm pretty noob at RTS) has a small army, he could literally get cut down before he touched the first rank. Dreadnoughts are awesome still as ever, essentially meatshields absorbing so much enemy fire and still being able to stand.
DoW was never about variety with units, they all looked and did pretty much the same things with a novel addition or two, like jumppacks and chainsaw blades, or those Terminator dudes with their big sticks and shields, but it seems to me the game has been stripped down to the core units, that will balance the gameplay, and also allow for some very refined tactics. You send Terminators into a small group of lowly infantry, it's gotta be very good for you, in the same way, you send a hero unit up against a Dreadnought, well... I wonder. Although I did send a hero up against an enemy half-track thing (it was a Space Marine tank thing) and it actually destroyed it single-handedly.
I always liked the visceral intensity of DoW, even more so than CoH, but they are essentially two different games. One is all about the bloodshed and the mind-blowing awesomeness of space war, and the other is all about the slow, realism that will blow your mind when you actually score a hard-earned victory. But DoW 2 seems to meld all of that into one. The game feels a lot slower than its predecessor, and perhaps it's for the better.
For now, I can safely say this game will probably do very well against the slew of new RTSs coming out like Starcraft 2, or Empire: Total War. People are going to be long-time fans of this reiteration because of the fact that tactics are heavily inputted, but still keep things fairly no-nonsense when there isnt' all that base building to do. Personally I like having no bases to build. Just build the troops and keep sending them to their death. Oh, and the Hero unit, when he dies, a huge revive button appears over his corpse and you have to hit it for him to return to base. I don't know what happens if you don't click it, lol, but I assume it's not pretty.
Well, I can't say much more because I only had about half an hour with the thing before I stopped.
I also got World of Goo, but I haven't played that long enough to talk about it either. But from the first few levels I've fiddled around with, the game's definetly got interesting qualities. Everything is so peaceful in comparison to all the hardcore shooters I've been playing, little gobs of ... well, goo, squirming around a little sticky network, until you pull one up and then it creates a new frame, and slowly you build it up as high as you can until it gets sucked into a little pipe Mario-style.
The only gripe I have about that game so far is that I can't seem to change resolution option. it feels all 800 x 600 when I want it bigger, or at least windowed for a sharper res. Ah well, griping at indie games won't get anybody anywhere.
Speaking of Mario, hoped you guys liked the new webcomic site lol.
That's all for now. Only just over 2 weeks left to go before my new computer, and I am getting real excited about the prospect of playing all my games on higher settings, especially Left 4 Dead. Immersion here I come.