Tag Archives: action shooter

E3 Trailer: Halo 4 “The Commissioning” (Live-Action) & Gameplay “Light Gun and Scattershot”

Posted on by Arleigh

It’s E3 week in Los Angeles (in a couple week it’ll be Anime Expo so as Lisa Marie would say, “Yay!”) and that means a load of announcements for new games and other gaming-related stuff. If there’s on game I’m really interested in checking out it’s the latest in the Halo series. Bungie has moved on but Master Chief and all remained with Microsoft Game Studios. Taking over Bungie’s development duties is an in-house studio created by Microsoft to continue the Halo franchise after Bungie Studios’ departure.

343 Studios has big developmental shoes to fill since many fans of the franchise equate the series with Bungie Studios and no one else. Microsoft and 343 have done a good job of preparing fans of the franchise for the change in studios which has been several years in the making. Their first title is suppose to add new life to the Halo series while making some necessary changes to keep up with the “Jonses” so to speak.

Halo 4 takes place four years since the end of Halo 3 and, from what the two trailers unleashed on the masses during Microsoft’s pre-E3 press conference, we see the familiar Covenant enemies but also a brand-new race that seem to have Forerunner technology. From the gameplay video shown below the first-person HUD series fans were so familar with has been tweaked to make it look like the player is actually looking out of the Spartan helm. I’d say this is 343 Studios trying to replicate the look and feel of Tony Stark looking through his helmet, but this time in a first-person point of view instead of the outside view we see in the films.

One thing that’s always a wonder to watch is what kind of live-action trailer Microsoft has come up with to help announce the game. Like their previous live-action trailers which behaved like short films, the one for Halo 4 just ups the epicness from the previous ones. Sci-fi fans may even recognize the actor playing the captain of the UNSC Infinity as Mark Rolston who played the doomed Pvt. Drake in James Cameron’s Aliens.

Halo 4 is set for a November 6, 2012 release date.

 

Trailer: Mass Effect 3 “Take Earth Back”

Posted on by Arleigh

During one of the many commercial breaks for February 19th’s episode of The Walking Dead audiences were treated to the premiere of a trailer for one of 2012’s most-anticipated video games.

Mass Effect 3 is the final title in the series trilogy that first began five years ago with the Mass Effect title. The series has just gotten bigger since then with the second title selling even more and improving on the first game. This third title looks to tie-up all the storylines begun with the first two games and finish them off in the only way possible: EPIC.

This trailer is simply called “Take Earth Back” and we see just why it’s called just that. The Reapers (extragalactic robotic beings of extreme intelligence who scour the galaxy of all living life every 50,000 years or so and this time they’re returning with their sights set on taking on the homeworld of the person who has tried to stop them from returning: Earth. We see much in this trailer from major cities being destroyed by giant Reaper ships then to the arrival of Cmdr. Shepard and his allies to take on the possessed “Husks” of aliens the Reaper has turned against everyone.

The game has been hyped since the second game ended and this trailer just adds to that as we get nearer to the title’s March 6, 2012 release date. This trailer preaches to the loyal and should go a long way to helping convince those still on the fence to pick it up.

E3 2011: Gears of War 3 Gameplay Demo

Posted on by Arleigh

One title that also looks to finish off a trilogy that’s garnered one of the biggest gaming fanbase is Epic Games’ Gears of War 3. This franchise remains exclusive to the Xbox 360 console.

The gameplay demo shown during the Microsoft Press Conference showed some of the new enemies players will end up going against not to mention some of the new weapons deployed by the COG team led by it’s leader Marcus Fenix. Gears of War 3 continues to make great use of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3.5 as detail between what’s cutscene cinematic and gameplay continues to blur that it’s hard to notice when the transition occurs.

Gears of War 3 still set for a September 20, 2011 release.

E3 2011: Battlefield 3 vs Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Posted on by Arleigh

This year’s E3 sees two well-anticipated titles that look to be on a collision course later this year as EA’s Battlefield 3  looks to try and dethrone the king of the modern war shooters in Activision’s latest in their juggernaut shooter franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Both companies showed gameplay videos of their respective games today and both were impressive.

Activision’s title looks to continue the action-film look and tempo of the series with this third entry. From the look of the gameplay the graphics looks to be just slightly above that of Modern Warfare 2 and equal to that of Call of Duty: Black Ops. From the look of things the three development studios working on this title looked to follow the mantra of “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”.

EA and DICE showed more gameplay footage of their competing title. One was an extended demo video which looks to be even better than the pre-Alpha stage gameplay footage shown months ago. The look of Battlefield 3 through it’s use of the new Frostbite 2.0 Engine looks to surpass that of the Activision title. The question now is whether the gameplay (boht single-player campaign and on-line multiplayer) will be equal to that of it’s rival. There’s a good chance this time they will as Battlefield 3 looks to go back to it’s early roots by concentrating heavily on the on-line multiplayer.

Battlefield 3 set to be released on October 25, 2011.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 set to be released on November 8, 2011.

Trailer: Gears of War 3 World Premiere

Posted on by Arleigh

Well, it’s finally out and that could only mean one thing. The major hype and media blitz that tells every Xbox 360 gamer that the latest Gears of War title is just months from coming out. Well, it would be 4 months still, but with E3 just around the corner sure to release more details on Gears of War 3 the anticipation for the third and final game in this wildly popular Xbox 360 franchise will hit the stratosphere by the time the release date rolls around.

The trailer shows some small detail about the plot of the game. Something about the main character (Marcus Fenix) finding out his father is alive and now must find and save him from the Locust (the bug-looking insect enemy). Other than that it doesn’t show much else other some gloriously cool mayhem on the screen. Some looks to be cutscenes while others look to be gameplay. But knowing Epic Games and the games’ designer Cliff Bleszinski scenes of gameplay and cutscenes always uses the same engine (an upgraded Unreal Engine 3.5) so there’s no weird transition from gameplay to cutscene.

Trailers for the Gears of War titles have always been making great use of licensed songs in the past to give a clue to the tone of the game. This latest trailer doesn’t disappoint as it uses Black Sabbath’s classic “War Pigs” song to highlight the violent and war-footing nature of this final game in the trilogy. Cliffy B. promised that the third game will take the carnage and mayhem in the series to past ridiculous. What better way to say a game has an extreme level of violence, mayhem and carnage than Sabbath’s “War Pigs”.

So, come September 20, 2011 it’s time to lock and load and get that chainblade roaring for some heavy metal Gears of War 3.