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Archive for the ‘Previews’ Category
Original IPs have been quite the rage with EA these days and it’s hard not to get misty-eyed upon seeing Dead Space, a third-person action/adventure horror escapade developed by EA Redwood Shores, in action for the first-time. Reggie and I were invited to EA India’s office in Gurgaon today to have ourselves an intensive hands-on session with a near final-build.
In the beginning of the game, we’re treated with an in-game cinematic of lead protagonist Isaac Clarke with a space crew heading towards the USG Ishimura, a giant orbital ship that suffered a huge communications blackout for whatever reason unbeknownst to its curious approachers. Eventually, stinky poop hits the fan when your crew’s vessel gets pulled into the Ishimura’s magnetic field and you’re forced to make a landing inside its hull. Voodoo vibes are in full effect, and this is pretty much were you come in.
There are games that are up there and on everyone’s radar – or indeed, in everyone’s face thanks to the large amount of marketing or advertising it gets (Halo 3 I’m looking at you) – games that everyone’s heard about and are looking forward to. But then there are games that slip under the radar completely – sleeper hits that somehow manage to miss the marketing train and instead come to your doorstep via bus.
Fracture is one of these games. Somehow I managed to miss all the marketing and road signs stating “TERRAIN DEFORMATION HERE” and being oblivious until the folks over at Penny Arcade mentioned it by putting up this video in their news. After seeing the rather viral excitement of the presenter, I realized that the Fracture demo had hit the XBL marketplace – the only logical action from this was to actually give it a run through. And let me tell you this: I’m really, really glad I did.
Hit the jump to find out why.
GCA 2008 has come and gone and we are still pretty much disappointed that we could not be there to cover the event. However, the Experience EA event in our very own backyard in Mumbai more then made up for it, what with it’s healthy dosage of upcoming AAA titles like Mirror’s Edge, Need For Speed: Undercover and FIFA 2009 bound to put a smile on the grumpiest of the gamers.
Held at the Hotel Trident in Mumbai, we got to try out many of the games that were featured at the recently concluded Game Convention Asia 2008 held in Singapore. One of the games that have had everyone spell bound for quite a while now, besides giving rise to endless debates on whether the Third Person View of the First Person View is the better choice is Mirror’s Edge. DICE, at the helm of the game, has done a radical turnaround from their award-winning Battlefield games to a totalitarian world which Faith, the game’s protagonist and other Runners like her inhabit. After having watched countless videos of Faith soaring through the roof tops, it was quite an exhilarating experience in itself to be given the control, of which we made some good use, a couple of hard landings notwithstanding.
My experience with the Real Time Strategy genre began not amongst the spice-filled hills of Dune II. Nor did it begin at the side of Kane, crushing my enemies under the Iron hand of NOD. No – it all began amidst the star-spangled banners of the allies, charging the front lines even as the colossal front of Soviet Mammoth Tanks pushed forward against all that stood before it – be it tanks, helicopters or infantry. Such is the affection towards the game that if my heart were considered an Italian mafia restaurant, the best table would always be reserved for the boss of the place and his son, Red Alert 2. No other game – regardless of how powerful or good - would dare to eat at that table, lest find themselves at the bottom of the creek with their feet in cement blocks.
And yet today I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. When I was given the opportunity to partake in the Red Alert 3 beta thanks to the bossman, I was nothing short of elated and excited. To finally see the continuation of the series and the third installment – to relive part of that experience along with something more – it was and still is an exciting opportunity. However… I seemed to have fallen into a trap.
There is something I try to keep reminding myself everyday: to stop falling prey to hype, flashy banners and pimped-out sites. Unfortunately, those constant reminders failed with Red Alert 3 (RA3) as I got into my sub and dived into the beta, completely ignoring the warning signs along the way. By the time I emerged back from the murky depths, my impressions of the game had changed significantly – both for better and for worse.
Back in the days when the World War II genre was dying a slow death, with no COD4 in sight to revive it, the first Brothers In Arms title came like a fresh whiff or air, bringing with it real battlefield tactics and allowing you to step in the boots of a real commander. Nearly three years after the first in the series, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 tasted critical and commercial success, Gearbox Studios readies Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (BiA:HH) to storm our consoles and PC in glorious HD. The ANGRY Pixel got it hands on PC preview code of BiA:HH to get a first hand taste of what the game has in store for us.
For those who haven’t been put-off by the negative publicity that DICE’s latest console-only offering managed to garner, June 5th is the day to look forward to as Battlefield: Bad Company (BFBC) will be having a demo on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The demo has already been out in the wild a full week in advance for all those who have pre-ordered the game. But thanks to EA, we managed to get our hands on it to see if the game will be able to earn back the goodwill that the Battlefield games have traditionally enjoyed.
The demo offers you a chance to test out both the multiplayer, as well as the single player aspects of the game. Being a Battlefield game and all, we promptly dove right in to multiplayer to see if the game stood a chance of standing up against Call of Duty 4 (COD4), the reigning king when it comes to online warfare. Jumping into a multiplayer match was easy and intuitive enough. Even though from India, the connection was established within minutes and we were prompted to choose our class. You have a selection of all the usual modern warfare classes such as Assault, Reconnaissance, Support and Demolition. Each class comes with its own unique weapon loadout that dictates what role will each play on the battlefield.
The month of May seems to have started off on a great note, what with E-Xpress Interactive playing Santa and leaving us a PC preview copy of the highly anticipated multi-platform game GRID. Knowing the rich history that Codemasters has when it comes to the racing games genre, the racing buffs in us were eager to try out the latest offering from their able-stables. Certainly then, braving the Mumbai traffic to rush back home was something that we were not really too keen upon. However, once back home and having installed the game, it just took us a couple of minutes into the game to know that all the trouble was worth it.
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