Video Games – Page 324

Leaked info on Battlefield 3 shows 80-player battles, late-2008 release

It looks the waterworks just got broken, because the leaks have started afresh. DigitalBattle has gotten their murky hands on a PDF that outlines Battlefield 3’s (which has not been announced yet) features and stuff. The document was supposed to be for investors, but, ya know.

The game looks fantastic from where I stand. There will be two factions – the NATO and the Middle-Eastern Coalition, who will fight it out in “ticket-based” battles. 8 maps will be included in the release and 40 players will be the max for each team – making for a humongous 80 player standoff! Wow!

Maps will mostly be set in Middle-Eastern cities, with one map titled “Baghdad Burning”. There will be 24 vehicles per faction, (total of 48!) 17 weapons per faction and 22 unlocks – which makes for a whole lot of weapons included. The game will also introduce “Battalions” which will consist of 3-4 squads. Five classes – Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support are present – not a big surprise there.

Other features include:

Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
“Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
In-game replay and recording feature
VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)

As for release and stuff – here’s what we know. It will be released in late 2008, with a teaser and announcement in January. Vista and OS X are supported, with no mention of XP (oh noes!). EA has played the diplomatic corporation and has given a stern “no comment” comment right now. We stand by for updates.

Guitar Hero III or Rock Band?

On October 28th the face-melting world will finally get its hands on the next iteration of the Guitar Hero franchise. And what is that you say? ANOTHER guitar playing game is coming out on November 23rd, and it has drums, the bass, as well as a microphone? Yes my axe-slinging friend, two games with guitars are coming out.

While the general gameplay and guitar seem to be fairly similar between Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III, the guitar playing in Rock Band has some interesting new additions. One of these such addition is smaller frets at the bottom of the neck of the guitar that are used for solos. These notes can be pressed without stumming the guitar on solos and will be extremely helpful on harder note streaks.

Also, the creators of Rock Band have added a nob on the guitar that allows for the user to change what kinda of sounds come out of the guitar. With new additions like these, I can’t help but try to think why someone would rather get Guitar Hero III than Rock Band? While playing the guitar in the first two Guitar Hero games was absolutely amazing, it got to the point where it seemed like it needed something more, and another slew of songs just didn’t seem like it would do it for me this time.

Ever since I played the first Guitar Hero, I thought about how awesome it would be to play another instrument, especially the drums, and how cool it would be create an entire band with my friends. While the bundle for Rock Band is significantly more pricey than Guitar Hero III (about $80 more), it seems like it’s worth it for what you are getting. Also, from what I’ve seen of the confirmed song lists, it seems like Rock Band’s is more solid.

All in all, if I had to put my money on one of these games for the holiday season, it would most definitely be Rock Band. As a matter of fact, I just preordered it.

Unreal Tournament 3 beta demo coming in 2 weeks, are you ready?

If there is one possible thing UT fans love more than UT itself, it has to be a UT demo. UT2004’s demo, once released, became one of the most downloaded demos of all time. Even after the full release, a thick percentage of gaming servers were demo-based and the demo’s famed ONS-Torlan map became one of the most popular maps of all time, beating the original’s DM-Deck16.

Well, it’s all going to start again, because Epic’s Mark Rein has just announced that UT3’s “beta” demo will be striking the internet with a vengeance in two weeks’ time. The demo will include a Singleplayer instant action, and of course, multiplayer. Rein says that it should most likely be available this very week itself, but two weeks is just a safe number. Three is even safer – I wonder why he didn’t pick it?

One reason it’s being called the “beta” version could be because it’s the “in” thing right now, like the Gmail “beta” and the 4 dozen different Web 2.0 sites you use that are in “beta”. But Rein makes it clear that the reason of the beta demo is to test UT3 on every hardware configuration possible. What does this mean? Forget your specifications and download the demo when it comes out, run it and tell Epic how it slapped you and laughed at your low-ass PC.

Epic also announced UT3’s system requirements some weeks ago. See if your system is hip enough:

Minimum System Requirements
Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
512 Mbytes of System RAM
NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Recommended System Requirements
2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
1 GBytes of System RAM
NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Also, FreakyGaming reports that the “minimum specs” given are “minimum specs for high in game detail” as compared to the bare minimum specs required to run the game (and possibly play reasonably at ultra-low graphics). Regardless, it’s best that you download the beta demo and see for yourself!

Microsoft Bundles 2 Games with 360

Xbox 360 bundle

Just in time for the Holidays, Microsoft has bundled Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in both the Xbox 360 ($349.99) and Xbox 360 Elite ($449.99) packages.

Microsoft is really giving consumers a ton of reasons to buy the Xbox 360 this Holiday season. Price drop, free games, and tons of great new AAA titles has made their offerings indubitably the best on the market today.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not games like Super Smash Bros Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy will be reason enough for most consumers to buy Wii’s this Holiday seasons than Xbox 360s.

Demo Update

Simpons Movie Game Covers
Don’t worry all ye folk with a 360 and no PS3! No, you aren’t getting exclusive titles like Metal Gear Solid 4. The Simpsons demo is now open to download though, so go grab that. So while we’ve had it since Thursday, now everyone else gets to play it on their nicer controllers yet explosive systems. Enjoy!

Or you can laugh at those fools with just a PS3 who have a Bladestorm demo a quarter the size of the XBL one. And now you’ve got a Conan demo. This is Conan, where you play as him and rip off the arms of enemies as your favorite Governator, not the RPG where you just see him running around in a loincloth.

Simpsons and Conan. What a glorious mix.

BBFC Rejects Revised Version of Manhunt 2, Rockstar arms itself with clubs

Months ago, we brought you news of Manhunt 2’s infamous banning in England and other British territories, as well as the remarks made by the BBFC which included ‘killing’ and ‘glorifying’ in the same sentence. Well, that led to Take Two apologizing and whipping Rockstar to revise the game and make it less gorier so that our British brethren will be happy. Rockstar grudgingly agreed, and presented before BBFC their revised edition.

Apparently, the BBFC isn’t all too happy. They have rejected the revised version of the controversial Manhunt 2, which makes us wonder as to what is going to happen to the game. David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said:

“We recognise that the distributor has made changes to the game, but we do not consider that these go far enough to address our concerns about the original version. The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the gameplay, is clearly insufficient. There has been a reduction in the visual detail in some of the ‘execution kills’, but in others they retain their original visceral and casually sadistic nature.

Looks like Rockstar didn’t do their homework right. They have also made it clear that they aren’t kissing any more asses.

“We [BBFC] did make suggestions for further changes to the game, but the distributor has chosen not to make them, and as a result we have rejected the game on both platforms. The decision on whether or not an appeal goes ahead lies with the distributor [Take Two].”

This furthers one of this year’s gaming sagas. Will Take Two further appeal against the harsh British decision? Will Rockstar attack Britain? Is the BBFC messing with Take Two? We can only guess until the next chapter is played. We stand by for Take Two and Rockstar’s responses.