Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in-between, behold: the most powerful force in the galaxy (Microsoft, if you haven’t guessed) has unveiled before us the packaging for Halo 3. The box you see above is for the Legendary Edition, and it is quite a beauty. Personally, I like the vanilla Halo 3 box best.
All the images below are high quality and massive resolutions. Oh, and we are not going to buy you a new set of underwear.
Halo 3
Halo 3 Limited Edition
Halo 3 Legendary Edition (the shiniest of the lot)
Right when you thought all the action is at E3, GSC Game World announced a prequel to this March’s well-acclaimed first-person shooter, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The prequel is titled S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and will be invading stores in the first quarter of 2008.
The game starts off a year before the events in the first game, in the year 2011. The synopsis is, as penned by GSC Game World:
A group of stalkers has for the first time reached the very heart of the Zone – Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. An immense blowout of anomalous energy changes the Zone. There are no more reliable and relatively safe roads. The entire levels vanish in the outbursts of anomalies. Stalkers and even expeditions die or end up sealed on the lost territories. New areas, which remained unknown since the time of the Zone emergence, appear on the Zone map. The Zone continues to shake with blowouts. The Zone is unstable. The anomalous activity is at its maximum.
Changes of the Zone map known to stalkers shake the fragile balance of forces in the Zone. Among the groupings, there flare up hostilities for the new territories, artifact fields and spheres of influence. There are no more old enemies or friends – now everyone is for himself. The Factions War has started between the groupings.
Our fancy protagonist is a mercenary who appeared “at the edge of the opposition between stalker factions” and is named Strelok. Your character will be responsible for creation of the Zone and laying the foundation for the original game which is too friggin’ long to type.
Clear Sky’s list of features is rather intimidating and will feature DirectX 10 rendering, a new animation engine, inverse kinematics, a very improved DirectX 9 renderer and several other additions and changes. Visit the game’s official site to get the full feature list.
Nintendo just announced at the Nintendo Press Conference at E3 2007 the new Wii Fit. It was their last and biggest game to be shown in the conference, which mostly described Nintendo’s upcoming games and their impact on public life with the innovative and fun gaming consoles, the DS and the Wii.
Wii Fit takes a hint from Wii Sports and is a full-fledged fitness instructor. Including a variety of different mini-games, Wii Fit aims at turning your Wii into a gym. The various exercises featured include push-ups, aerobics, yoga, dance and several fun games like headbutting Materazzi footballs that come shooting at you – the goalkeeper.
All this is achieved with the help of a new pressure platform, which can judge your BMI, the shift between your center of gravity as well as several other things. This will also judge whether you should improve your posture and so on.
The game will keep track of you and your family’s progress, which means that you can compete with other members of your family to see who loses weight faster (which is very good for you, yes you, fatty). Also, since the platform in question is completely wireless, you can put it anywhere in the room you like.
And who better to demonstrate it other than every geek’s hero, Shigeru Miyamoto! The big daddy himself competed (and lost) in his game, which was fun to watch. Still, I would find it ridiculous to move my body around and headbutt the air on a pressure platform.
Currently, no release date has been supplied. It may come anywhere from the end of 2007, to the middle of 2008. Of course, Nintendo will not hesitate to tell us – once all the fanboys have stopped squabbling.
Today, Activision announced their new partnership with Gibson Guitar Corp., the worlds leading musical instrument manufacturer and leader in musical technology. With this new agreement in hand, Activision will be featuring some of Gibson’s best guitars in the upcoming Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Fans can expect more than 20 classic and modern Gibson Guitars as well 80 finishes to use! And hell yeah – fans will be doing it all with their new wireless Gibson Guitar controllers.
The game will allow you unlock the following “battle axes” in-game:
Gibson:
ES-335
Explorer
Firebird
SG
Les Paul
V-Factor
Super CES400
Marauder
Corvus
Epiphone:
Casino
Coronet
Sheraton
Kramer:
650
Vanguard
Bass Guitars:>
Marauder
Corvus
Les Paul
LP Double Cutaway
EDS 1275
ES335
Firebird
Flying V
Moderne
SG
X-Plorer
These wireless controllers will be available for all consoles. The Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii versions of the controllers will be using Gibson’s Les Paul model, while the PS2 version will see the classic Kramer.
The exclusive Gibson guitars will include innovative features such as removable faceplates that will allow fans to personalize their guitars, and a new button color design will be integrated for an even greater authentic feel and rock experience.
As you can see, Guitar Hero fans are going to have a field day.
Read on to find out what the guys Gibson Guitar and RedOctane said, as well as to find plenty of photos of the new wireless controllers (the one above is for the Wii, if you didn’t guess).
Through the last week there has been plenty of hullabaloo over Sony cutting the price of PS3. If you ask me, it was inevitable. Ask a newborn baby if he’d like a PS3 and he’s say “too damned costly!” Well, Sony has confirmed the cut (after denying it some days ago) and now the PS3 will sell at $499 starting Tuesday.
Sony will also be introducing a $599 80GB model, bundled with a copy of MotorStorm.
Last morning, I speculated whether Sony would be getting any more sales. Microsoft is swimming in money with the massive sales increase. Sony isn’t left behind, in fact they’ve gone far ahead, atleast at Amazon. The price drop has caused an increase of (I kid you not) 2800% on Amazon. The sales for the 60GB PS3 have actually exceeded the Wii and “Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s”.
I think there are some economics lessons to be learned here.
Last night, Gametrailers got their hands on a new Call of Duty 4 trailer and I eagerly clicked on the HD version. And the trailer blew me away. The entire trailer consists of actual gameplay (which isn’t actual gameplay, since I didn’t see a first-person perspective anywhere), but the realism is beyond bounds.
Call of Duty 4 retains the core style of the originals, while adding enough glitz and sleekness to make you slip. There will be choppers firing missiles, night-vision, “we need him alive!” missions, realistic physics and god, the graphics are bee-yuu-tii-full. They may not be Crysis, but they’re awesome enough to make me jump.
I was one of those people who wondered whether taking the CoD series out of WW2 was a good idea, but this one awesome trailer has booked my copy. Modern Warfare, here I come.
You can view the trailer in HD at Gametrailers (coming above), or in our very own Pipeline (below).
