Pavilion Coming to PS Vita and Playstation 4

      Visiontrick Media and Sony Japan have teamed up to bring the "4th person" game Pavilion to the Playstation gamers.

      Henrik Flink has said this about the game:

“Pavilion, the fourth-person puzzling adventure from Visiontrick Media, throws you directly into its mysterious world without any text tutorials or beginning explanations. It is a puzzle game portrayed through exploration and audio-visual imagery. By interacting and observing you gradually, bit by bit, learn things about both the puzzling gameplay and the world itself.”

      From what little is available about the game, you don't control the character, but rather you control the environment and circumstances around them in order to guide or force them to do things you would like them to. I look forward to experiencing this strange new way of gaming.

      Sony is really bringing some interesting games to the Vita (They recently announced that The Swapper is coming to the Vita as well), and I certainly hope they continue with this trend.


      Source [ Playstation Blog ]

Arkham Origins: Cold, Cold Heart DLC Trailer & Release Date (Batman & Mr. Freeze)

     The latest Batman Arkham game has finally released the teaser trailer for the Origins DLC story campaign add-on.  Of course it features my personal favorite Batman villain- Mr. Freeze.  So far the small teaser is looking really good, and I am extremely excited for this DLC.

     I see in this short teaser we get a couple very quick shots of Mr. Freeze, showing a much clunkier version of his suit.  A shot of his boots and one of the back of his helmet, which appears to be a call back to his bubble helmet of old DC Comics appearances.

     Batman: Arkham Origins: Cold, Cold Heart will be available 04.22.14

     Source [ Arkham's Official Facebook ]

Heroes Reborn: Show Set to Return in 2015 #HeroesReborn

"It's amazing how it comes right back..." -Samson Gray

     NBC has announced the return of our beloved show Heroes.  A 13 episode stand-alone story arc is set to be released in 2015 with no known details yet under the title Heroes Reborn.



     In addition to the TV mini series NBC has said it'll have a social marketing tie in:

     "With the return of “Heroes Reborn,” NBC will launch a digital series prior to the 2015 premiere that will introduce the characters and new storylines. This leveraging of social media is a way for fans to re-engage with what was one for the true pioneers in multiplatform storytelling."

     #HeroesReborn

     Personally I've been waiting for something like this for years.  In fact I've blogged extensively on how they could set up the show's beginning.  They really have so many options- Samson Gray seeing Claire's healing on TV could start a new serial killer, Hiro could time travel back and completely change history, or Sylar could stop flip-flopping and stay on "one side" to make things less confusing.
     After they announced the Heroes comics (Dynamite Comics) continuing the story where TV left off I'd hoped they'd do a show, and apparently enough of the fanbase spoke out as well, so we are getting it.  I would humbly like to ask that they don't mess this up, they have a chance to get back to the show's roots- return to what made the show wonderful in the beginning.  Don't focus on a huge world changing event, instead look at the small scale lives effected (that may cascade into bigger things itself)- but rather, be like season one.  We want to discover that awe inspiring mystery, power, and drama again.

     A side note: If you readers come across my really old Heroes posts, my apologies to the poor format and massive rants and rambles.  I hadn't acclimated myself to blogging at the time.
     So if you're still interested in my other posts click here [ Heroes ]


     Source [ NBC  Heroes ]

Aladdin: Sega Genesis: Replay & Review (RE)2

Genie of the Lamp

     Starting right away, we get amazing graphics with the Genie shooting in the air at the Sega logo and Iago falling past.  The sprites are clean and fluid- absolutely stunning animation work.  They look like they were ripped right out of the film.  The looks are perfectly paired with highly responsive controls.  Only the music is lacking, but I would chalk that up to Sega's sound capabilities being less than optimal.

     The story is the simple rags-to-riches-with-the-help-of-a-magical-bring tale of Aladdin we all know from the Disney movie.  There are a few deviations to make the game playable without confusion on its own.
     And this game has one of the most brilliant set of instructions (back when instruction booklets were commonplace) I have encountered.  One screen with all you need to know in one place.  It's so simple and effective, why more games don't do this is beyond me.

A Magic Carpet Ride

     Being a typical 2D platformer, they have you running and jumping, slicing up bad guys with a sword, or throwing apples for a long range attack.  The levels are littered with collectibles (hearts, apples, emeralds) and if you find the vendor you can buy more lives and continues.  There's also a couple of mini games by collecting the Genie and Abu tokens.  The Genie's minigame is a slot machine and for Abu's mini game you get to actually play as Abu... with a sword.

     I really enjoyed games like this, with enough production value, that if left alone Aladdin will toss himself an apple.  There are also plenty of Disney related Easter Eggs to be found- like positioning Aladdin under items on a clothesline will give you an extra life by giving you Mickey Mouse ears, and another adventurer in the dungeon level is a skeleton with the Mickey Mouse ears.  There's also some familiar looking statues in the desert.  It's in the subtle details that this game shines.  It's in the face of a camel when jumped on, it's in the way an apple splits in half when an enemy's sword cleaves it, it's in the 3 outhouses (men, women, genie)- all those little things really add up.

    The level design itself is amazing as well.  There is an absurd amount of effort put into the levels.  They aren't just go left to right, plenty of them are so creative and open new avenues of play.  One level if you collect a certain amount of flutes, it'll unlock various lying ropes that bring you to different ares in the level.  If you search there are tons of hidden jokes, and secret areas to explore.  A huge variety of things to see that fill them up like statues, flamingos and a dog with a key in its mouth.  Some are even interactive, like the camels.  You can jump on them and they'll spit which damages enemies, a very useful tactic in the early stages.
     The Genie makes frequent appearances to guide and assist you on the path.  He's a balloon, the moon, a referee, and even the doorway out in one level, where you need to scale steps that are made out of his tongue.  That is creepy and gross, but hilarious.

Wishes

     I do have to be honest the enemy variations are a slim.  Only a handful of repetitive enemies does get a little old over the course of the game.  But the bosses are distinct enough to make it great.  Although Jafar himself seems to be too difficult in comparison with the rest of the game.  The challenge skyrockets for that one boss, but is fairly moderate for the rest.

     In the end nothing in Aladdin is too bad.  The negatives are so small they are easily tolerable.  The difficulty isn't too bad, but an option for saving or continues could've done wonders for this game, as some levels drag on pretty long, and the intensity gradually gets higher toward the end- not too tough, nor too easy, it rides a delicate balance through most of the game.
     Maybe a few more stages (there's only 10) would've been nice as well.

A Diamond in the Rough 

     Aladdin stands as one of the best 16-bit platformers ever, and will forever remind me of why I loved the Sega Genesis system so much.  Aladdin displays such an undeniable use of creativity in every aspect of the game, it's fun and loaded with personality.  This is what licensed games should strive for, becoming a classic.  There's just so much here, it makes replaying it a joy just to stop and see what little touches they put into the background.  When it comes down to it, Sega's Aladdin game is every bit as much a masterpiece as the Disney film was, and won't soon be forgotten by those that play it.

     Draft from 01.12.2014

Guardians of the Galaxy: First Trailer

     After seeing this first full trailer I'm quite ecstatic.  It's a bit more lighthearted than I'd expected, but it may be a great thing for this film- absolutely loaded with action and humor.  I mean seriously, look at this screencap I nabbed.

OBSCENE GESTURE ALERT!

     Here's the Trailer, courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel on Youtube:
     

     And for a bit more info (from USA Today):

     "The movie teams five disparate personalities: Peter Quill (Pratt), aka Star-Lord, was taken from Earth as a 9-year-old, possesses a mysterious orb artifact and pilots the Milano, a muscle car of a spaceship. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is connected to Thanos, arguably the cosmos' biggest baddie. Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) is a muscular dude you don't want to upset. And then there are the aliens Rocket Raccoon and Groot (computer-generated characters voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively), who are best pals and potentially the biggest things to happen to pop culture since Chewbacca.

Their stories converge in the space prison Kyln. After the characters break out, they venture to Knowhere (the severed head of a celestial being that serves as a hangout for aliens) and visit the weird menagerie of the Collector (Benicio Del Toro). They also have to avoid two villains, Ronan (Lee Pace) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), who are in hot pursuit of Quill's orb, which has the power to destroy the galaxy."

     I think Guardians is going to be a massive hit with a younger audience than Avengers, but will hold it's own.  It's going to be fun on a galactic scale.

Game of Thrones: Season 4: Trailer 2: Vengeance

     We've received the 2nd trailer for the 4th season today, and it is good.



     The anticipation is mounting, and each new look makes me even more eager for this.  And oh my- the dragons are getting quite large now.

     Season 4 begins Sunday April 6th, 8pm Central time on HBO.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice... 2! According to Michael Keaton & Tim Burton

It's showtime!!!

     After hearing rumors for years, we might actually be getting somewhere.  In a recent interview with MTV for the Robocop reboot Keaton has said this:

     "I've e-mailed Tim a couple of times, talked to the writer a couple of times, but all really, really preliminary stuff," Keaton said. "I always said that's the one thing I'd like to do again, if I ever did anything again. But it kind of required Tim to be involved some way or another."

     "Now it looks like he is involved," Keaton continued, "And without giving too much away we've talked to each other, and e-mailed each other, and if he's in, it's going to be hard not to be in."

     As a long time fan of both Keaton and Beetlejuice- I'm pretty excited.  I've always wondered what became of both the living and the dead families from that film.  I wonder if Beetlejuice's head is still shrunken?

     It makes me curious as to why Zach Snyder didn't cast Keaton as Alfred Pennyworth for Man of Steel 2: Batman vs Superman?  He's the appropriate age and has the right look, not to mention his history with the Batman franchise...

     Source [ MTV ]

The Last of Us: Left Behind Review

     The highly anticipated The Last of Us story campaign expanding DLC, Left Behind, has finally arrived and I can say it was worth the wait.  It is extremely short- only a couple hours in length, but it is much more filled DLC than Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Part 1 was, so length of playtime isn't a complaint for me here.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

STORY

     In this tale we get 2 interwoven stories, the first being shown in the trailers and articles, is about Ellie and her friend Riley and their time together at the end.  The second story is what happened after Joel was severely injured and Ellie had to take care of him.  It is a simple, but moving picture of the lengths she'll go to save him, and consequently, exactly how strong a bond they share from the main game.

     Where the focus is, the interaction of Ellie and Riley, and their last day of fun together- is told as good as could be.  This is done with typical Naughty Dog flair.  They've given us another experience instead of a mere game.  We have humor, emotional tension, and down to Earth human drama between two people.  I found it to be quite moving as far as short stories go- the relationship these two have is something hard to nail down properly, but Naughty Dog has done it superbly.
     The dialogue between them is pure genius in writing, and stands as a great contrast to the bleak world and dangerous combat found around the next corner of the game.  It's a gem of love and hope in a world of desperation.  And it fully gives us insight into Joel's final dialogue in the end of the main game's campaign.  It shows us not only that Ellie fully understands what he is doing, but why he's doing it.

     As Riley says:

We fight.

There are a million ways we should've died before today.

And a million ways we can die before tomorrow.

But we fight...

     for every second we get to spend with each other.

    It really drives home the point of these people clinging to what little good is left in this world.

     In addition, we have bits of supporting story told with things found in the game.  There's the well known collectibles that give us small insights into the story through notes or recordings left around.  But there were also some Tweets if you spotted them.  Small tie ins you could look up on the net that expanded the story into the real world.  A nice small addition that adds a little bit more to the story for those that are looking for it.
   
COMBAT

     My only complaint is really with the combat.  The game has scarce resources, and only being able to collect limited resources limits your capabilities.  That in itself isn't the issue, it is when the game forces you to think ahead and plan your way through situations with stealth, then at the end bombards you with an absurd amount of enemies all at once feels counter to what they've been building to.
     Realistically speaking, Ellie would've been slaughtered without a problem in the "now" story trying to protect Joel.  But in the game after dispatching the first wave of enemies, a second wave spawned to both sides of me, and trapped me in an inescapable place- causing imminent death.  It happened a few times in a row, in 3 different places in that last stand, which is semi time sensitive as well- if the enemies open the door to Joel, game over.
     So it just felt a bit unfair to force players into open combat as the easy to die Ellie (she's not nearly as durable or strong as Joel), when a larger stealth option seemed more fitting, planting traps and misdirection might've been better.  And on top of the forced combat- that last section is 2 waves of heavily armed humans, and a 3rd wave of infected.  It's dropping you in the middle of two sides, and hoping you survive.  Some may argue that it's more realistic, but then just plain hiding and waiting it out could've worked as well.  It did help to have the infected and lure them into the 2nd wave of humans, then methodically take out the infected afterwards.  Personally I like to throw a brick into a corner, and when the infected gather for an inspection- molotov the group, easy clean up.

OVERALL

     This is a perfect way of making DLC, a tightly drawn story with just enough action combined into a neat package.

Gearbox: Borderlands 3 Not Currently Being Developed, and That's a GOOD Thing.

     Over at Polygon, Randy Pitchford made some comments sure to dishearten all of us Borderlands fans, but I would like to say, "Hey, this is a GOOD thing."

     Firstly, there's this:

     "We are not working on Borderlands 3," he said, "We have more to do in the franchise, but no there isn't a Borderlands 3."

     "When you think of what Borderlands 3 should be, it should be massive," Pitchford said. "It should be bigger and better than Borderlands 2. It should carry forward the story. It's probably crazy multiplatform, depending on timing. It would have to be a next-gen game and a current-gen game, if it was coming at any time in the reasonably near future."

     I cannot argue with this at all.  They want to make something worthwhile to both us the gamers, and worth the brand name they've built.  Why focus a ton of money on making a game on 4 major consoles, PC, and possibly handhelds, when you can make it for just 2 major consoles- eliminate the time and effort of multiplatforming for PS3 and XBox 360.  It's a poor use of resources.
     They are waiting to provide us the better, more excellently produced game we all want.

     Then Pitchford follows with this nice tidbt:

     "We love Borderlands, and we know customers do too. So we will be doing more in Borderlands. But the thing that, when you think of what Borderlands 3 should be... No. We are not developing that right now. We don't know what that is yet. We can imagine what it must achieve, but we don't know what it is yet. I'm not going to fuck around with you like Valve does with Half-Life 3. Look. We know we want it and we know it should exist, but we don't know what it is yet. But we are doing things in Borderlands that we'll announce soon, that are good, and that I think people will be really excited about if you love the franchise."

     Preproduction work and early conceptualizing might be done, but not much more.  Taking a break from it is a good thing to do.  Monetarily they might want to milk the teats off this, but waiting is the smart thing.  They are focusing on their other IPs like Homeworld, Brothers in Arms, Furious 4, and 2 as yet unnamed IPs.  Sure there is a small chance one of them is Borderworlds, but really- we need a break from Borderlands 2.  Let the creators do other things, and come back with fresh eyes to the next installment.

     We have one more bit of DLC coming for the Borderlands franchise with Sir Hammerlock vs. The Son of Crawmerax, and then some time away.  Besides, there are some Borderlands related things that'll be announced soon enough (as mentioned in Pitchford's quote above).  Some things to tide us over and keep us interested while they are away.  We certainly don't want to have an over-saturated market for the game, and subsequently get burnt-out developers creating less-than-great work.

     Personally, I would rather wait, and have a 3rd game arrive in like 4 years, once the new systems are hitting their stride and pushing the limits of what can be done.  A good, comforting thought- take advantage of the new hardware without needing to limit it to the old generation's capabilities.

     There's plenty for them to add and build from- A complete overhaul on the loot system- more companies, more parts, and MORE VARIANCE!  I have so many guns that are too alike despite being completely different.  Even in the first Borderlands, at least the weapons all had different "feels" if they were similar.
     There's the "only 6 Sirens at one time in the universe" statement.  There's the Seraph's.  The Cult of the Vault.  Companies like Atlus returning to wreak vengeance on other companies.  There are a plethora of things they have to expand on, and I'd rather they take their time to craft a story and game to fit our expectations, so we don't end up with a pile of Skag-crap.

     Considering that Borderlands 2 essentially made them a bazillion dollars, there's definitely something in store for the future of the series, it's probably just in the ideas stage right now.

     Source [ Polygon ]

Batman: Mr. Freeze 2014 Action Figure By Greg Capullo

     I found a video on IGN this morning announcing DC Comics' Collectibles Lineup.  Among those toys listed there is a new Capullo designed Mr. Freeze.  Being my favorite Bat-villain, I am excited, however, this is not even close to my favorite version of the character.
     Why is half of his torso showing- he'd be losing a lot of heat, or burned by the outer temperature being too much for his skin's required low temperature.  It seems to be a kind of preposterous design for his character.  That being said, I'll still be picking it up to add to my Freeze collection.

     Source [ IGN ]