Well, the time that seems to arrive once every year around November has finally arrived. The latest iteration of the Call of Duty first-person shooter franchise from Activision will see a midnight release starting 12:01 am on November 8, 2011. Already there are lines numbering in the hundreds in major cities. Parties being held at stores such as Best Buy and Gamestop as hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of gamers flock to get the game in their hands. This game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and it’s one of those rare video games which actually lowers work productivity the week of it’s release. It will be safe to assume that the morning of November 8, 2011 will see a high amount of sick calls and last minute PTO requests.
I won’t be one of them but I will still get this game in a week or two. Until then I’ll just continue to watch this funny and creative trailer for the game starring Jonah Hill, Sam Worthington and Dwight Howard.
The time for the final push to hype up the upcoming first-person shooter from EA and DICE has begun.
Battlefield 3 gets a brand-new TV ad spot which touts the title’s actual gameplay and the strength of it’s new graphics engine with Frostbite 2.0. To better give the ad a particular hook it uses Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” track to some great effect. The video shows the three different gameplay choices a player can have during single-player and multiplayer gaming: foot soldier, helicopter gunship and fighter pilot and tank driver.
As the tv spot has pointed out — plus the video below showing some multiplayer gameplay — Battlefield 3 has been the consensus best shooter to be seen by industry people at all the gaming shows and conventions this year. Whether the title will knock Activision’s Call of Duty franchise off it’s lofty perch still has to be seen, but if there’s a game that could begin the process of doing it then Battlefield 3 may just be it.
Battlefield 3 slated for an October 25, 2011 release date for the Xbox 360, Windows PC and PS3.
I’ve been hyped and itching to get my hands on Battlefield 3 for months now, but still have a little over 2 months to go before I get that chance. Until then EA and DICE (Digital Illusions CE) have come up with another way to tease it’s fans by using Gamescom 2011 over at Germany a new video footage of actual gameplay (using an earlier alpha build of the game). This time around it’s not in-game footage of the single-player campaign. What we get instead is two whole minutes of wargasmic in-game footage showing the game’s multiplayer mode (64-players playing at once over on the PC while the Xbox 360 and the PS3 get 24-player limit for ground fighting).
The footage is of the mulitplayer map simply called “Caspian Border” and it’s a multiplayer game being fought not just between players as foot-soldiers, but also driving armored vehicles, jeeps, tanks and helicopter gunships. But what got me really going is the fact that air-to-air combat with jets. I don’t mean those white-and-green wearing, following the fat, blowhard who has no rings to kiss Jets, but jet fighters performing deadly aerial ballet with their opposing number.
I think if there is ever one reason to pick up Battlefield 3 over Activision’s upcoming title to their juggernaut of a FPS franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, then this gameplay footage with the jets will be one major reason. I may just practice flying those jets for multiplayer and shout “Tally Ho!” over the mike when ambushing another player in their jet.
Battlefield 3 is still set for an October 25, 2011 release date in North America with Europe and the rest of the world getting it the following days.
Ken Levine, head of 2K Games’ Irrational Games development studio, was on-stage during Sony’s E3 Press Conference to hype up his latest title to the acclaimed BioShock franchise. The third game in the series looks to take the series from it’s failed undersea utopian city of Rapture and into the skies. Like Rapture, BioShock Infinite will have a setting that will be a full-blown city but floating skyward attached to giant balloons and zeppelin-like structures with rails that act almost like rollercoaster tracks for players to move from place to place.
The trailer Levine showed at the Sony Presser looks to be one using all gameplay footage which is always a welcome sight since in year’s past too many games promised too much based on cinematic, pre-rendered trailers. I’m all for CG-animated trailers, but it’s always how the gameplay looks and plays that counts in the end.
One thing that was also announced by Levine during this press conference was how the Sony version of BioShock Infinite will have the option for players to use the Playstation Move motion controller to play through the game.
BioShock Infinite only has an approximate release date around 2012.
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.
Above is the announcement fans of the Halo franchise have been waiting for and below is the second most-awaited one. First, the announcement that a new Halo trilogy being developed by in-house developer 343 Industries was something fans have been waiting for news of and today those wishes have been answered as the announcement trailer for Halo 4 was shown at Microsoft’s E3 2011 Press Conference. The trailer pretty much starts off around the time of the final scene which ended Halo 3 with the iconic Master Chief and his gal pal, the A.I. Cortana, floating towards an unknown planet.
Rumors abound that said planet may be the long-lost homeworld of the franchise’s Forerunner race which created the Halo rings in the series. Just think of the Forerunners as similar to the Ancients of Stargate franchise. I know more than a few friends and acquaintances who have tired of the franchise. I, myself, don’t play it as much as I used to, but I still buy the games since I’m a sucker for world-building sci-fi and fantasy franchises and the Halo Universe is definitely one of the better ones to come out of the gaming industry.
Halo 4 looks set to have a Holiday 2012 release (just in time for the end of the world it seems).
The trailer below is the one some fans of the franchise have been waiting for as well and that’s the news that the very first game in this franchise, Halo: Combat Evolved (first released for the first Xbox in 2001), will be remade using the new graphics engine developed for Halo Reach. So, this game is pretty much just like the very first game millions of gamers ended up loving and obsessing over but with new clothes and fancy things. Here’s to hoping the gameplay and weapon mechanics remains just like the original.
A little over a week ago Activision released four different teaser trailer for their upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 first-person shooter title for the holiday season. These four teaser trailers pretty much didn’t show much other than four countries where the game would be set: America, England, France and Germany.
Now, we finally get the first major trailer for this title and it reveals the images only hinted at the previous four trailer. From what could be seen in this reveal trailer it looks like this latest game in Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series will bring the franchise into World War 3. While most of the trailer looks to be cutscenes the final scenes does show some gameplay elements that looks to bring back on-the-rails vehicle combat. What it doesn’t show is whether it will have full enviromental damage during gameplay (as promised by Activision) and whether players will be able to actually control vehicles during the game (campaign and multiplayer) the way players can in it’s rival game at EA.
Maybe more will details on the gameplay changes will be revealed during E3 this coming June. I hope so, because so far Battlefield 3 has been the one title that’s impressing me, so far. But even if this game only delivers on some of what it promises I probably will still get it since most everyone I will play with online will have it.
It looks like Activision has released a tad early the teaser trailers for the third game in their wildly popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series of first-person action shooter. Leaks began to appear about Modern Warfare 3 days prior to the release of these simple teaser trailers. With EA and DICE already months ahead of showing the public and game journalists peeks into their much-anticipated Battlefield 3 the ball was now in Activision’s court to respond.
The Modern Warfare fan-base continue to remain loyal to the series, but already there’s been chinks in the series’ armor as the previous entry in the game saw the head of it’s development studio, Infinity Ward, fired from Activision then followed by nearly half of the lead programmers and designers of the Modern Warfare franchise. This showed a weakness in Activision’s biggest franchise outside of World of Warcraft (which I still think more a Blizzard game than Activision). EA and DICE had an ok attempt to knock off Activision from the modern combat FPS genre with Battlefield 2, but it wasn’t enough. It looks like Battlefield 3 may be the one title that could do the job.
Modern Warfare 3 will be set right after the cliffhanger of the previous game and take players through battlefields in 15 cities around the world (the US, France, England and Germany being some of them). Just like Battlefield 3, this game will have fully destructible environments and a much more expansive gameplay map. Players will return to controlling vehicles (though Activision doesn’t specify if they’ll be on-the-rails vehicle controls or fully-controllable vehicles like those for Battlefield 3) like the AC-130 gunship and an M-1A2 main battle tank.
It would be foolish of anyone to say this game will tank. This game could be just a massive rehash of the previous two game with updated graphics like it’s new Black Ops sibling, but with the tens of millions of fans worldwide it will still sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of units. The question now is whether the strong push from EA and DICE with their retooled Battlefield 3 will be the needed kick in Activision’s collective pants to improve on their signature franchise instead of just sitting pat and hoping brand-name recognition makes them tons of money again.
Modern Warfare 3 is set to have it’s worldwide release on November 8, 2011.
Through the Shattered Lens 