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Modern Warfare 2 Avatar items in the works

If you’re an FPS fan then you are definitely anxiously awaiting the release of Modern Warfare 2 and would love to show your support for the game by dressing up your Avatar in some MW2 gear.

Today Robert Bowling has let us know via Twitter that there are in fact Xbox 360 Avatar items in the works:

“Not sure we’ll be doing any Avatar rewards, but we are making avatar items. With some free ones hopefully.”

So, expect to see Modern Warfare 2 Avatar items hit Xbox Live some time before the game’s November 10th release date.

Lil Wayne has a modded Xbox?

Lil Wayne is a Grammy award winning rapper who sold over 1 million copies of Tha Carter III in its first week on store shelves. However, when he’s not busy making music, he’s apparantly an avid gamer. But he isn’t just any kind of gamer instead he is a gamer with an Xbox that plays “every game from A-Z, Atari, Nintendo, pong, movies and even porn”.

But wait, why doesn’t my Xbox 360 do that? Well, the only way this is possible is if Mr. Carter has a modded Xbox. Sure, mark it off as convenience but you would think a guy with that kind of money could afford to buy his games rather than have them all stored on one console.

via joystiq

GameStop listing hints at Xbox 360 Wireless N network adapter price and release date

GameStop has recently put up a listing for the Xbox 360 Wireless N network adapter that we’ve been hearing about for some time now that lets us know of both a release date and price.

Of course, GameStop has been known to put up phoney release dates as a place holder until the manufacturer actually speaks of one but they currently have the adapter listed as releasing on October 3rd at $99.99.

A steep price but if you’re looking to ramp up your wireless connection this is your answer.

MS’s Phil Spencer: motion control ’should become a part of gaming’

Kotaku recently sat down with Microsoft’s Phil Spencer to have a bit of a chat about the forthcoming motion controllers and what consumers can expect from them. Spencer, for one, is very optimistic about motion controllers’ future saying we will most likely seeing them accompany consoles in living rooms everywhere.

Below is a quote from Spencer regarding his stance on the subject:

“Much like with multiplayer, I think it will become the norm. If you are a racing game without multiplayer the game just didn’t sell. We think that motion control, we think voice recognition, should become a part of gaming as well.”

While I agree, motion control is definitely the future (showcased by the Wii’s success) I don’t know how fast the generation of gamers who grew up with a normal control will move on. For instance, playing Halo with Project Natal? Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Xbox 360 games no longer required to be HD

Way back in 2005 when Microsoft first let the Xbox 360 loose they set a precedent that all games were required to run in a resolution of at least 720p. Well, if Black Rock Studios’ David Jefferies is to be believed (which he is), that is no longer the case.

Jefferies recently went on record to say that Microsoft has just recently given developers to go ahead to develop games that run below a 720p resolution. You’ll make note that we reported to you a while back that games like Halo 3: ODST and Modern Warfare 2 run at a resolution lower than 720p, although those developers most likely got special treatment considering the scale of both titles.

via kotaku

Buy one Xbox 360 game at Best Buy, get another half off

Best Buy is really looking to give GameStop a run for their money, especially with their latest sale — Starting today, if you buy one Xbox 360 title you will be able to purchase a second at half price. In other words, spend around 90 bucks and walk away with two brand new games.

Currently, Best Buy has listed 231 titles that are available through the promotion including forthcoming titles such as BioShock 2 and Final Fantasy XIII.

Peep the full list here.

New MechWarrior Official

We didn’t have to wait long for the teaser trailer’s hinting to be confirmed; there’s a new MechWarrior in the works. It’s being developed by Piranha Games with FASA co-founder Jordan Weisman on board. So far the title is simply MechWarrior and the game is being developed for the PC and Xbox 360, though fans of the franchise will be happy to hear that they’re definitely going for the battle simulation feel of the originals.

The game will feature intelligence warfare prominently with players getting access to unmanned drones for recon and communication purposes. In the non-xbox games every mech had its purpose and a skilled light mech pilot could defeat larger, more heavily armed opponents. Unfortunately in MechAssault there was a huge balancing issue. No matter how swiftly you ran in the lighter mechs eventually a single shot or two would land and blow you to smithereens. They’re looking to fix that by adding in experience points that you accumulate by piloting specific classes of mechs. The more time you pilot one class the greater your abilities with that type will become.

Free DLC Coming to Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires

Koei has been doing quite well with the Dynasty Warriors series for years now. Sure, they’ve got a lot of reviewers bored to tears by the repetitive gameplay and storylines, but the cult following of the series is quite happy with how things go every time. They’re certainly smart about how they sell it as well, with my brand spanking new copy of Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires, purchased on the release date only setting be back a mere $40.

One of the perks of the title is the custom character mode where you can assemble your own legendary warrior(s) for use in the game. You start off with a handful of outfits and though you unlock more as you play, the variety is not as wide as one would hope, but they’re going to remedy this soon via DLC. I definitely feel appreciated as a fan because all the DLC for the game is completely free of charge. They’re also adding in a pack of new background music for those who are a fan of their odd composite of traditional asian music and rock.

Race Pro Game Review–Like Driving A Brick Through Wet Cement

Yes, it’s yet another in a long, long, LONG series of racing games currently available for the Xbox 360.  This time, we’re talking about Race Pro, a game that breathlessly promises to be “the ultimate racing simulation experience”, and I’m sure that is the case on planets where no one has discovered driving, video games, the internal combustion engine or the wheel.

That’s the thrust of the review today, folks–this IS in fact the ultimate racing simulation experience if you’ve either never actually had a racing simulation experience before or you’ve never actually driven anything before.

Basically, the plot of the game, such as it is, is exactly that. You’re going to drive cars.  No, this doesn’t exactly have the same literary quality of Ridge Racer’s young up-and-comer looking to burn his way through the ranks of the professional driving circuit, or the various underground racers where you’re out to gather pinks and impress hot chicks who like to wave flags half-naked for little or no conceivable reason.  You’re just here to go fast and turn left, except for when, on occasion, you will be called upon to turn RIGHT.

You may be asking yourself at this point, hey, if that’s all I’m supposed to do, then why even bother?  I mean, if I wanted to be stuck in traffic for twenty minutes while I tried to drive a car down a twisty, windy track, then why don’t I just jump in my car and actually, you know, go somewhere?  At least then everybody on the Internet’ll stop calling me a basement dweller because I haven’t left the house in months.

Sadly, I don’t have much of an answer for that.  Oh, sure, with Race Pro you’ll get to try out various different kinds of cars, on various different types of tracks, with various different types of options.  I give Race Pro due credit for having an almost OBSCENE number of options–not only can you tweak the difficulty, you can also tweak subclasses of the difficulty as well.  For instance, if you’re racing on hard mode and find the AI’s just a little TOO aggressive with the competing drivers, you can actually dial down the racers’ AI difficulty level.  It’s an absolutely customizable racing experience.

Absolutely customizable, yes…but worthwhile?  That’s where I’m going to have to say no.  I had SERIOUS problems with the controls on this one–even something that should be video-game simple, the drift maneuver, I couldn’t manage to pull off.  In fact, driving the Mini Cooper in the first level felt exactly like the headline described, like driving a brick through wet cement.  I remember trying to pull off a turn, so naturally, I decelerate so I can jam on the gas after I’ve started to pitch my nose a bit.  The car promptly decides that it prefers going straight, and thusly goes COMPLETELY OFF THE TRACK and into the dirt.  The game then warns me that I’m “cutting track”, to which I respond with a torrent of obscenities detailing the fact that, one, I already KNOW I’m off the track and, two, that I wouldn’t have been if the game had done what it was told to do in the first place.

This is, of course, profoundly irritating, but there’s probably a workaround if you’re desperate enough for a new racing game to try.  I personally say that there are better racing games out there–vastly better, in fact–but if you want a driving sim that’ll give you a huge fight, then Race Pro is the game you want.

Bioware Founder Defends Sex Scenes In Games

While the self-appointed cultural crusaders raise an eyebrow at excessive violence, nothing gets them more frothed up and ready to bust heads than sexual content. Recently video games have begun to take the romantic component that some RPG makers have been including to the next level in a more visual format. This stirred up a mildly ricidulous hornets’ nest of controversy when Mass Effect was released, though most of those complaining hadn’t actually played the game.

Bioware’s newest RPG, Dragon Age Origins reportedly contains similarly racy content at some point as well and one can only assume that Mass Effect 2 will allow more boffing of sexy blue aliens (or aliens of some other hue). In an interview Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuck defended his company’s decision, citing that that they’re doing this to reflect real human relationships in a “sophisticated mature experience”. He admitted that they’re not necessary for every game but “in certain types of games it makes sense to have them.”

Do digital recreations of sex scenes, no matter how tasteful, really improve the immersiveness of a video game’s romantic subplots? Public opinion still seems to be split on the matter, so what do you think?

Epic Games Not Dropping Controllers

With every console manufacturer to soon have their own motion sensing peripheral the question remains as to where the classic controller will be after the dust settles. Some say it’s not going anywhere, while others are more hopeful about the possibilities of motion controlled gaming. While both the Wii and Sony’s offerings involve specific controllers, Microsoft’s Project Natal takes the controllers out of the equation altogether, using cameras to monitor players movement.

As both Bungie and Epic games had been given then chance to play around with the features of Natal well before its announcement, the question has been posed as to whether or not Natal controls will feature into their future titles with both Halo: Reach and Gears of War III on the horizon. Epic’s Cliff Bleszinksi says that though they’re keeping an open mind, he thinks it’s unlikely: ”Y’know, we’ll take a look at Natal–no promises–but it’s likely that the classic control interface is what Epic will be working on in the foreseeable future.”

He did admit as many have that in some ways Natal could be used in conjunction with the existing controller: “ I think there’s ways that you could merge the two interfaces and supplement a classic game with Natal controls to make something compelling.” Thus far the camps seem divided along more or less predictable lines with casual game focused companies more interested in motion devices and the rest looking at them with either mild interest or utter disdain.

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood Game Review–Good But Only In Isolation

I’ll admit up front today, folks, that I actually enjoyed Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood on the Xbox 360 for what it was–a surprisingly well-done, a surprisingly intuitive, first person shooter that brought plenty of action right from the word go, and a story that actually held my interest.  But there are still problems to be had here, and we’ll get into those directly.

First, the plot itself.  A prequel to the original Call of Juarez, this time we’re with the McCall brothers as they fight their way through Georgia at about the same time William Tecumseh Sherman began his infamous March to the Sea.  With Georgia in slowly burning ruins, the McCalls, despite their spectacular valiance, aren’t able to repulse the invasion.  It even gets personal when Sherman’s March takes the McCall family farm with it.  Thus, two out of the three brothers McCall turn outlaw and go off to find the legendary gold of Juarez.  Along the way, they’ll tackle a variety of enemies–an Apache connected to the gold, a Mexican bandit and his lovely concubine, and even the Confederate army they went AWOL from in otder to turn outlaw.  The McCall brothers will thus launch a swath of lawlessness and destruction that will in turn leave its mark on the entirety of the old West forever.

I know, it sounds like an awesome story.  And watching it unfold, it really IS an awesome story.  But this is not where the aforementioned problems come into play.  The problems themselves come in on the actual gameplay end of things.

The controls are solid enough–no real problem there–but the biggest problem is that Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood is so very limited.  For instance, in the first level, you’re mostly crawling around in some trenches, trying to piece together where exactly you’re supposed to go.  Sure, you’ve got a marker giving you some idea where to go, but it’s still tough to tell if you need to take this corner or that corner back there and go around the long way, if you get my drift.

I’m convinced that I’ve become somewhat spoiled by Fallout 3 as I wind up comparing every first person shooter I play to it.  And sure enough, stacked up against an opening act like that, pretty much everything else will have to pale in comparison.  There’s just no two ways about it–you can’t eat a porterhouse steak then go chow down on meatloaf and say it’s on par with the best beef ever.  So what you have to do in response is take everything in isolation.  By itself, Call of Juarez has a decent multiplayer mode with lots of options, plenty of wild action, lots of gunplay and explosivesplay and all the things that make a shooter game solidly entertaining.  The graphics are at least fair, and the sound is solidly done.

And yet I still find myself somewhat let down, because I’ve seen what first person shooters actually can be. I’ve seen the kind of fun that can be had when you put someone behind the gun and let them roam wild and free over a huge map.  Every maze-crawler, every railroad run, every point-a-to-point-b game that follows is just a sad, sorry imitation.  Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood may be good enough for a play, but it’s definitely not as good as it could be.

New Left 4 Dead 2 Weapon Unveiled

The world of zombie-related media is often full of nods, homages and references. Despite a lawsuit claiming plagiarism the initial moments of Dead Rising, a human dropped by helicopter into a shopping mall filled with zombies is quite obviously a reverent bow to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The house defending scene from Resident Evil 4 felt like something from the original Night of the Living Dead or any number of other horror films.

Not to be outdone, the folks developing Left 4 Dead 2 have put in their own loving tribute, but this time to a far more modern piece of zombie lore: Shaun of the Dead. No, you won’t be hurling records at the shambling corpses, but you’ll have the far more satisfactory crunch involved with pounding on them with a cricket bat. The efficiency of this weapon is yet to be announced since Valve are keeping a tight lid on things, but whether it takes one or a hundred whacks with this simple implement to dispatch a zombie, every swing will be full of glee. I’m guessing once the game comes out the number of virtual cricket bats in use will far exceed the number of real cricket bats being employed.

Fuel Game Review–Freedom to Ride

Racing games and I generally do not get along.  I find them somewhat dull and repetitive, even after the initial adrenaline shock wears off.   This left me with something of a quandary as I discovered a racing game that was actually pretty entertaining, and it’s a new one out for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC called Fuel.

Fuel assumes a future in which Al Gore is allowed by Federal law to laugh and point at everybody who can’t produce a receipt for a copy of An Inconvenient Truth.  Seriously, though–it’s an “alternate present” in which the weather has only very recently gone completely insane, turning large areas of the United States into “no-go” zones, or areas where no human being can safely live.  Thus, humans pack themselves into huge megacities, a la Judge Dredd, except these human hives are apparently warm and comforting places powered by wind and solar and biodiesel, and thus everyone lives in Al Gore’s fantasyland.

There are, however, a few mavericks who realize that, the sudden cessation of gasoline usage has left a whole LOT of spare capacity just sort of lying around, and thus, this gives them the opportunity to take it for their own use.  Hey, why not?  Not like anyone ELSE is using the stuff anyway!  So they appropriate large quantities of fuel and use it to stage quasi-legal offroad joyride races.

To that end, you’re dropped into a scale area of roughly five thousand square miles and set to race.  You’ll be able to select various races against other competitors, as well as having an opportunity to engage in “free riding” but more on that in a minute.  First, we have to deal with the races themselves.  In this way, Fuel is a lot like literally every other racing game on the market.  You drive around trying desperately to pass other people and reach the finish line.  In this way, Fuel is just as good as any other.  The graphics are solid enough, the controls are a little twitchy and take a little getting used to but still do fairly well, and the background music is appropriately rock.

Fuel would be a game much like any other if it weren’t for one critical difference–the free ride mode.  Free ride does just what it sounds like it does; free ride allows you to tear around the map in literally any direction you please, pulling tire-squealing turns on roads, donuts on the beach, whatever you like,  There’s even some structure here as your free ride mode allows you to drive to places where challenges are being held.  Completing these challenges nets you extra fuel, which in turn allows you to buy other vehicles.  Plus, you’ll be able to obtain new parts for your livery, find fantastic views at so-called vista points, and just generally run riot all over the map.

Fuel is, therefore, a game of surprising depth and substance, as well as plenty of fun.  For those of you who already like racing games, you may well have found the ultimate in racers right there.  But for those of you who haven’t been very fond of the racing game subgenre, then you may well want to give Fuel a try.  This is the game that just might change your mind about racers.

Aspyr And Mindware Announce Mental FPS

In the video game industry there’s usually a reverse correlation between the uniqueness of the premise and how combat focused it is. Don’t get me wrong, games like the God of War series and Mass Effect definitely have a lot going for them in terms of style and plot, but the basic barebones ideas behind each aren’t terribly unique: fighting monsters from ancient mythologies and shooting various alien creatures in space.

Every once in a while though we get an interesting game that brings an interesting take on one of the standard action formulae. First person shooters are notoriously uninventive, but Aspyr Media and Mindware Studios are teaming up to create an FPS that’ll blow your mind. Or at least blow it up. Some writers have toyed with the idea of psychic therapy, somehow going directly into someone’s mind to fix their issues, but in Dreamkiller you’ll be taking a much more cathartic approach. As psychologist Alice Drake you possess the unusual ability to enter into the minds of your patients and fight their demons with an array of weapons and powers.

The game will be spread over twelve different levels with an overarching plot that hurtles you towards a showdown with an ultimate evil force. It might not be the most unique premise in the world, feeling like the love child of the film The Cell and an HP Lovecraft story but the underlying potential is great. Games that take place in a setting which can completely ignore any laws of physics or realistic dimensions can be incredibly unique and unusual. Do I think this game will live up to its incredible potential? Probably not, but I can certainly hope. The title is set to ship this fall for PC and Xbox 360.