Gamescom09 Hands On - Halo3 ODST - Firefight

Finally getting into the ODST booth at Gamescom was a really interesting experience (although i did get caught looking like I was having a pee by Bungie, that was of course intentional). On one hand I think new Halo stuff WOOO!!! everyone needs to play bladeblah but on the other hand I think whats going on here, are they fooling us with an experience thats samey, an experience that is just Halo 3 in different wrapping.

(Image taken from www.gearlive.com/gallery/image/2099/) 

In a way it seems so but also you have to think about lots of small changes to make a big difference when you play. From the new grenades to the change in the use of vision (they have visions to highlight opponents, night vision etc) to the lack in a way of shield all make your tactics and playstyle as Master Chief different to playing as an ODST, which I think is enough for the overall experience.

Now onto the mode Firefight. If your thinking Horde with vehicles in Halo 3 setting you'd pretty much be right because it has that feeling all over when you play it. But where this can differ is in the use of the skulls. You can collect the skulls again as you could in Halo 3 but they can be used to change the gameplay per level, which could be interesting. I'm anticipating sometimes just chucking all the skulls on to see the carnage that insues. 

This mode is going to be popular, horde was arguably the most popular thing to come out of Gears Of War 2 and it won't change here. From the short play we had I know this will probably be one of the better ways to play Halo 3 with your friends and luckily we don't have long to wait. 

GAMESCOM 09 Hands on - Dantes Inferno

To be fair this game came as a bit of nice surprise to play for me, I was really going into part of the EA booth to find and play Brutal Legend but I got the opportunity to have a fair go at this and as I say I found it to be pretty good.

Imagine you've got Devil May Cry and mixed it with a bit of God Of War and you've got this game in a nutshell. Essentially you play as a knight tackling massive monsters and annoying little enemies in a third person beat-em up style. From what I played it seemed the controls were fairly easy button press combos to gain the most attack damage and then on the bigger bosses performing quick time events to perform damage so this is where the comparison I was refering to earlier comes from.

What most impressed me about this game was the way it looked, the graphics for the character model and everything around him seemed really well polished. I'd keep an eye on this for it's release in 2010 because if the story can live up to it's gameplay style and looks this could be something to take your precious gaming time away.

For more information on this game check out the main site: http://www.dantesinferno.com/home.action

Gamescom 09: The Gamers Tavern Infiltrates Bungie's Weekly Update

The Gamers Tavern were ALL OVER Gamescom, what with us meeting various IGN folks, Crecente, Garnett Lee and Tim freakin' Schafer.  In fairness the latter was more an embarrassing 'Oh, umm, hey Tim Schafer, right on!' as he walked past after having something to eat, than an actual meeting, but for a split second he acknowledged our existence, which come on, is more than most can hope for, right? 

However, one of the more surprising discoveries since we came back from Gamescom was the fact that we've sneaked onto this week's Bungie Update, as we were having a blast at ODST at Microsoft's booth.  I'm guessing Delski was aware the cameras were on us and decided to pull an awesome 'Look I'm doing a wee' pose.  Any opportunity to show off, Delski...

If only I wasn't wearing that bag containing our entire day's swag then you'd have seen the true awesomeness of my T-Shirt, but whatever, Captain Dude and Delski more than make up for it.  Chris can even take pride in the fact that the image was actually named 'Captain Dude'. 

Delski will be Warthogging his way around here soon with his impressions on the game. 

Check out the Bungie Weekly update after the jump

Bungie Weekly Update

GAMESCOM09 HANDS ON - PES 2010

Going to the Konami booth to play the newest iteration of the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise was a experience that has finally confirmed the truth to me.

Last year it was all about PES, this was the BEST football game until FIFA 09 came along and improved itself so much that PES became viewed as stagnant and not innovative enough for me. This does not change this year while Fifa has once again improved with it's 360 degree movement etc PES based on this fairly early build has become totally lost. From the lacking graphics to the gameplay which I didn't think was as good as PES6 never mind for today. Hopefully Konami will eventually get the wake up call that they need to revive PES in such a way as to present itself as FIFA does.

One of the biggest role reversals in gaming history is now complete.

Grin's Not Smiling Anymore

So another big games developer has gone down the swannie due to monetary problems, but this time the developer is quite well known and have produced a few triple A titles and fairly recently aswell.

The developer in question is Swedish based GRIN. The developers behind the good besides the story Bionic Commando and the great concept poor execution Wanted Weapons Of Fate. So this is not a bad developer at all but I think they definately suffered from too much work for one development studio at once. All the GRIN games came out in one big clump so they all suffered.

This is why developers like Bungie and Infinity Ward have the most successful games, because they start with a great concept and devote all their efforts to that one concept. I think GRIN could have done with this attitude to succeed. Hopefully the trend of losing talented developers doesn't continue.