Video Games – Page 274

Deus Ex 3 First Details! Officially a Prequel!

As was rumoured, PC Zone got the first real scoop on Deus Ex 3 for their 200th issue, and goddamn, things have been revealed. Eidos Montreal, who’s working on the game have promised the game will learn from Invisible War’s mistakes and will cater to fans of the original. How much of it will they deliver?

To start with, the story is officially a prequel set in 2027. While I utterly abhorred the idea of a Deus Ex prequel at first, this actually sounds fine. It should be better than Invisible War, at any rate. You won’t be a Denton this time round, of course. You’ll play as Adam Jensen this time, so no female protagonist. Doubt if female Alex D will be missed anyways.

The story will be deep and layered, much like the original. To affirm this, the studio has drafted Sheldon Pacotti, writer of the Deus Ex for consultation. Sounds fine and dandy for me, especially since Harvey Smith and Warren Spector have given their blessings!

There are going to be a few changes to gameplay. Whether that is good or bad is going to highly debatable. Among the good stuff, there won’t be unified ammo like in Invisible War. The bad stuff? There’s going to be auto-healing, like in Call of Duty. That may have made sense for a biomodified human, but since its a prequel, I don’t see why JC Denton in Deus Ex shouldn’t have had auto-healing!

Stealth will rely on a cover-system, instead of shadows. How that works, I don’t know; but I sure as hell know I’m going to subtly miss hiding and crouching through shadows. There seem to be some creative new augmentations this time round. 20 have been confirmed, and sound totally awesome.

Among the ones given, one will let you “bungee jump” from walls of buildings. Woah, wait. We’re going to be jumping of buildings in this game. How cool is that? There will be the ability to punch through walls and grab enemies in the next room, which sounds totally awesome. Damn, I can’t wait for the other augmentations!

Full info comes on October 9th, when the issue goes on sale. I’ll be waiting!

Nintendo DSi

Nintendo has gone Apple. Welcome to the i, the DSi. At Nintendo’s Fall Press Conference, they’ve unveiled their latest handheld device. While not an official successor to the original Nintendo DS, the DSi offers plenty of new hardware and software features.

Hardware –
No more Game Boy slot: I’m sure Nintendo fans will be annoyed with this move, but hey the future is forward, not backward.

Thinner: Yes the DSi is now even thinner than the DS Lite. Hopefully you won’t break the handheld in fit full of rage as you lose to a 9 year old playing Mario Kart online.

Larger screens: Now you’ll finally be able to read lines and lines of poorly written video game dialog! With screens being enlarged by 17% to 3.25 inches, I’m sure everyone will be able to notice the difference.

Audio Enhancements: It’s unclear what Nintendo has done to improve audio on the DS, but apparently whatever they did is worth talking about. But I’m still want to be able to listen to the radio on my Nintendo DS.

SD Memory: Portable memory is key to the success of a handheld. No one wants all their data stored onto only one device. Transfer information over to your Wii, PC, etc. Think of the possibilities.

Camera: Remember how the Game Boy Camera, sucked? Well Nintendo is going back to its roots by offering a new twist on an old friend. This bad-boy 3 mega pixel camera (yes it has more mega pixels than my cell phone!) is going to ‘change the way we play games.’ Ok, that’s an exaggeration, cameras and video games have already been in a long-term relationship.

Software –
DSi Shop/DSiWare: Download games, music, and more stuff that a shop can offer. Now you’ll be able to actually save your downloads onto your DS! Pricing starts from Free, 200 points, 500 points and 800 points.

Built in Browser – Surf the net without having to pay for a browser! Is Nintendo now imitating Microsoft?

All-in-all, I cannot wait for the new Nintendo DSi. I’m a sucker for this stuff. It has a release date of November 1 in Japan, at a price of $179.

Monday XBL shuts down.

Just a friendly reminder that on Monday the XBox Live service will be out of action for a full 24-hours. If you need a quick fix of Halo or Call of Duty on the console then now is really your last chance to get in some good times.

Microsoft are also running a few competitions this weekend to keep things buzzing before they go offline so it might be worth taking a look to see what’s going on. For PS3 users however all is normal and will continue to be so. It’s hard to imagine a world without XBL now especially with all the fanboys arguing that it’s a great service or that it’s bad you have to pay to play. Anyway, time is running out. For some the best XBL game will forever be Halo 2, but what do you think? As usual comments are always welcome here at SWL where gaming matters.

Rockstar has 50% off this weekend.

There are not many hours left so if you haven’t seen it yet this is almost a steal. The full Rockstar Games Collection is 50% off this weekend at just $29.99 U.S. You can get it via the Valve download service Steam which means while you don’t get a big box to put on your shelf there is the bonus of getting the games just as fast as your net connection. It’s quite a perk all this digital downloading from Steam as it even patches the games when required automatically so those who haven’t taken a look at the service should do so. The collection includes the GTA’s, Max Payne’s and Manhunt among others.

Be aware though this offer is doubtful to be available to those outside the US so bad luck for most of the world. It’s very unfair for those of US who are outside the US but on occasion we do get offers that our American counterparts don’t so there is some balance in the world.