During the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco a development studio Seven47 announced their new product, a new guitar that will forever change the rhythm gaming industry. Essentially they released a new controller used for videogames that is an actual guitar. Engadget has the press release of the product.

Many new sites had different things to say about the product, how it is good or it will fail. One that stood out particularly for me was the criticism by Joystick. The author, Andrew Yoon, was very blunt to say how he believed there was no apparent value of a new guitar game. With the giants of Guitar Hero and Rock Band to compete with there is very little a new competitor can offer to the market. The author went on future stating the equipment was too large compared to the other equipment being offered by Guitar Hero or Rock band. He also stated that if they didn’t offer drums and microphone equipment it would be a step backwards (which may not be the case according to an article by engadget).

The truth is this piece of equipment is not supposed to be a toy guitar, it is supposed to be closer to a real guitar. This new piece of equipment is supposed to emulate a guitar much better than any of the other products so far. With equipment using 6 strings instead of buttons, the user can learn to play chord and do much more than learn rhythm and timing being offered in other rhythm games so far. Also this guitar tool can be plugged into an amp and the user can jam with other guitar players (this is not going to be as good as a Gibson guitar, but a good learning guitar). Essentially this toy is a stepping stone for people who want to take their joy of the rhythm game to the next level, and learn an instrument.

I personally didn’t like rhythm games because I felt they took people away from actually learning to play music. It gave people an opportunity to pretend they were a rock star but never really learn the beauty of creating music. This tool will give people who are scared to learn a musical instrument a chance to become an artist with simple learning games. Supposedly the game is tooled in a way that after you beat the game in the hardest difficulty that you will actually be able to play the songs.
At this time very little is known about the actual game but supposedly the game will have a story different than any other. From the article written by the Xbox team, they state the story will involve a revolution where music is used as a weapon. At this time it will be a while before the game will be released so little information is known. As for graphics, the graphics of the game are sub-par, being compared to PS2 or Game Cube graphics. This is Seven47 first game created, and they are a guitar company moving into the gaming industry.

This is an excellent step forward to give gamer a chance to become actually musical artist. As more information becomes available about Seven47 new product, we’ll be following the story.

I was expecting this day to have much fanfare and excitement.  Here I am just 18 hours away from having a copy of Final Fantasy 13 in my hands and I’m so pumped up but I look around and everybody is all ‘meh’. 

From what I’ve read and heard about this game, Final Fantasy XIII is structured more like Final Fantasy 6, in that it leads you along a certain path in the story, then opens things up for you for the 2nd half of the game.  I’m excited by this comparison.  Final Fantasy 6 is one of the greatest games of all time and comparing anything to 6 is an honour. 

From the early reviews of the game, everybody is saying that these are the best graphics on the PS3 yet.  With games like Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, Uncharted 2, and God Of War 3, that’s hefty praise and I’m excited to play the game on my nice HD TV with the lights off and the high-tech speakers doing their thing ;p.

One thing that concerns me about this game, going into it knowing that there’s no towns (apparently) scares me a bit, I love towns and cities and stuff, I can relax in towns, I don’t have to be on the edge all the time.  I also don’t like the fact that I can only control one character at a time, but I’m sure these things will be just fine. 

The only thing I can think of as to why people are not that excited is the early reviews of the game.  They’ve been fairly weak for a Final Fantasy release.  I don’t think this means that it’s a bad game, but rather, the competition has risen to incredible heights.  Companies like BioWare and Naughty Dog and Electronic Arts are raising the level of excellence in teh video game industry and Square-Enix sort of needs to have a fire lit under their asses again.  Maybe the somewhat poor reception that Final Fantasy XIII is getting will wake up the head honcho’s of Square-Enix.

I’m expecting this game to give me my Final Fantasy fix until Versus XIII.  I don’t think that it will be my all time favourite Final Fantasy game, but I think it will definetely compete for top 5 and that’s all I can ask for.  In the past year, I’ve played Final Fantasy: Dissidia, Final Fantasy 4: The After Years and now I’m blessed with Final Fantasy XIII.  If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, you really can’t complain that you’re not getting your fair share of Final Fantasy!  And there’s still Agito XIII, Versus XIII (which look AMAZING btw) and Final Fantasy 14 to look forward to, not to mention a possible FF7 Remake or post-Advent Children game with Genesis perhaps?  And who knows, maybe a Final Fantasy 5 or 6 DS remake too.  Final Fantasy 15 news is probably around the corner as well…so much FF!

 

Yes it is true, scattered all over the internet Valve announced that a second portal will be released. This new Portal will be a full fledge game, which compared to it’s predecessor was a 2 hour puzzle game. Much information is coming out an spreading across the net like how this new Portal will also be multiplayer. MTV Multiplayer Blog has the full story on the Co-op of the new portal game.

The possibility of a co-op multiplayer Portal brings on a lot of possibilities. We all know Valve revolutionized the First Person genre with their release of Half-Life and they currently have some of the best multiplayer games available with the Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead series. The concept of a co-op portal game where two players shoot portals and solve puzzles could be profound.

Well looks like Valve was far too excited to announce this news that they couldn’t wait until the 9th for the Game Developers Conference. Well maybe they wanted to shine a bit brighter than everyone else, or maybe they were too excited. Another piece of new released is the Valve announcement of crossing over to the Mac. The image below has a Team Fortress parody of the IPod ads that clearly states that Valve is going to the Mac. For more information you can see the MTV Multiplayer Blog

The possibility of the next Portal being available for Mac users is an excellent idea. From experience most Mac users are more artsy and puzzle focused. This would be a great way to expand the market into a more casual market and convert them into more dedicated hardcore gamers. Portal was a great game to show that FPS could be more than just guns blowing things up and hopefully the way Valve is going we’ll see Portal open the mind of our fellow artist friends and have a bit more gaming coming in from there.

Laura Croft and the Tomb Raider series is one of the most lucrative gaming series in the industry. The beautiful female heroine has been in our games, movies and comics. In 2006 the Guinness Book of World Records recognized her as the “Most Successful Human Videogame Heroine”.

The series hasn’t announced a new title since 2008’s release of Tomb Raider Underworld. Today Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics announced their plans of the new Laura Croft game. Not much has been released other than the logo above, which surprisingly doesn’t keep the Tomb Raider name. It is believed that more information will be announced at this year’s Game Developers Conference held on March 9th.

Word has been that the female character has been redesigned to be a more empowering character to draw in more female gamers. Laura Croft is a brilliant and sexy character in video-games, but she has been given the title of eye candy being one of the first most recognizable female characters. At this time videogames have the impression of being a boys club but with current market trends the industry is hoping to have more girls enjoying this form of entertainment. It will be exciting to see how Laura Croft has been redesigned to appeal to the female audience.

The trailer for Halo:Reach was released today, and now you get a chance to see some of the game play of the latest addition of the Halo Series.

Now in the trailer you do get to see for a glimps that Jet Packs will be avaliable. This is totally Awesome, because Jet Packs will add a new addition to game play. A recent critic by Zero Punctuation explains how awesome Jet Packs in shooting games can be. Now he is critiquing Dark Void, which the game unfortunately didn’t do that well in his opinion, but the Jet Packs are awesome. This new addition to game play will bring lots of hope to awesome adventures in the next Halo installment.

Update:

Well internet there is some sad news coming out of this update to the story that was happening yesterday.  Seems that Infinity Ward has confirmed that president Jason West and CEO Vince Zampella are no longer with company.  This comes to us after a long day of wondering why people were showing up unannounced and trying to find out what happened to the heads of the company.

It is a sad day when people that who have been with you for so long leave but we here are sure that both Jason and Vince will have no problem finding a new place to call home and we wish them the best.

It you want the full story and to see what Tim Schafer has to say about all this, you can check both links here:

Infinity Ward – Confirmed

Infinity Ward – Unannounced Guests

Original Story:

On one of my walks through the interwebs, I have found something that could be a little unnerving.  Apparently, sometime today a “bunch of bouncer-types” showed up outside at Infinity Ward and did not give out any information as to why they were there.

There is not much information at the moment given out right now.  Aside from the fact that this happened in the morning. Around the time that Activision had a meeting with Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West, who have not been seen since.

Obviously this is leaving the staff at Infinity Ward a little worried. Unfortunately there is no new information to give out.  We will be following the story as information is released but you can also keep track of this where I found it:

G4Tech – Infinity Ward Security Appearances Unannounced

This has me wondering though, could this be a P.R. event? Is there something big coming from Activision and Infinity Ward?

Did you pick up this game? No? Go do it…I’ll wait.  I’m not kidding go pick up this game and then you can come back here and read this review.  I don’t care if you don’t have a PS3, pick that up on your way to get the game. Don’t make me turn this review around.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first, the movement controls.  Walking around in this game is a pain and the fixed cameras aren’t much of a help.  Luckily this isn’t a huge issue but more of a minor annoyance.  The second problem with the game is a plot hole, but if you don’t notice it, that’s alright. If you do, oh well.

Well, here is the review of Heavy Rain:  The story will take you across four perspectives of the main storyline, which is trying to solve the case of a serial killer named the Origami Killer.  Scott Shelby, the asthmatic private investigator, has been hired by the families that lost their children to the killer. These are some o the characters in the game: Norman Jayden, an FBI agent addict, filling in the role of “the man,” there’s also  Madison Pagie, the sexy photographer, and finally, Ethan Mars, the father of the latest kidnapped child, who’s trying to piece together the clues left by the killer to save his son.  All four point of views do an amazing job of guiding the player through the story.

The gameplay is a straight forward narrative.  We’ve all grown accustomed to having an open world for us to wander in and make our own story but as with all twists in suspense in this game, I’m more than happy to be taken by the hand through the story.  As for the controls, well it isn’t much more than a quick time event aside from walking.

It is hard to give a review of Heavy Rain without giving away the story but this is definitely a game to go pick up and enjoy whether you are watching or playing. It will keep you hooked until the very end, and then another play-through to see if all the clues were there to begin with.  This game gets a shining 5 out of 5.

So the Nintendo Summit is going on right now.  Unfortunately Campus Gamers is not able to make it out to this years event, but we hope to make it out in the future.  Information is now starting to spread of Nintendo latest and greatest tech.

If you didn’t already know, Nintendo has released the fourth edition to the DS model the DSi XL.  It was released in Japan in November and has been received well.  It will was announced in North America for March 28th.  The DSi XL is just like the DSi but now a larger model.  This is Awesome because the big problem with the DS is the kiddy controls are hard to play a game on.  A lot of the market that uses hand-held devices is growing older and are playing games like Brain Age.  Obviously Nintendo wants to take hold of this market and so they will be releasing the DSi XL.  This new DS actually is selling better than the DS in Japan.  It will be sold at $189.99.

Nintendo also gave a date for the Metriod: Other M project, June 27th.  This is supposed to be the darker more real Metriod game.  Nintendo is working with Team Ninja on this project, the people who brought us the excellent games of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden.  This will be a much more mature verison and will reboot and revitalize the Metriod series for Nintendo.

Now off to Mario Galaxy 2.  How does Nintendo do it, make these Mario Games that just make you feel good.  I remember when the first Mario Galaxy came out, it had such an old school feeling.  The game is expect to be released as of May 23rd of this year.  It’s successor did very well in sales, not as well as New Mario Bros but that was just a record breaking success.  Nintendo will be cashing in large with the Mario franchise and this will be an excellent 3D game.

Did you play Braid and have a great time but thought something was missing?  Was the missing element pie?  Well, you’re in luck, because The Odd Gentlemen’s new Xbox live arcade game, The Misadventure’s of P.B. Winterbottom, has just come out on Xbox live.

This is not a Braid clone in case you are worried about that.  P.B. is not the same time control game where time moves based on which way you’re going, and you do not have multiple time controlling powers.  Your main objective is to get the Chronoberry Pie.

The story is told in a rhyming fashion in text where the narrator seems to have a dislike for Winterbottom and you for aiding Winterbottom on his quest. All this is being told on a screen that is made to look like a silent film from the 1920s, because where else would you find a villain called Winterbottom with a huge pie craving?  The story itself will take you across five movies in which you relive some of Winterbottom’s thefts but fix the wrongdoings that you have done to the people of Bakersburg such as damaging a clock so that 7 p.m. will never come, making dessert and walking a dog through the park to relieve himself, but that never happens since the town seems to be on a strict time.

After a brief, yet highly amusing tutorial, you find yourself in the Theatre where the player is sent with Winterbottom back in time to fix a wrong that he has committed in his lust for pies and there are a lot of pies.  The controls are spot on for this type of game, but  there needs to be, especially when you’re walking a clone of Winterbottom through ovens, dodging mallets trying to  crush you, and attempting to cross sinking platforms.  Although the game is quickly finished, if you have played portal it leaves you with the same sense of satisfaction that portal has.  Using light, clones (both good and evil), and recordings of yourself will frustrate and entertain you at the same time.

All the visual aspects of this game are just great to look at and fits perfectly for the game. The dark 1920s cinematic design of the game is amazing in the 2-D platformer and keeps your interest throughout the game.

All in all, if you’re looking for a great platformer/puzzle-based game to keep you gaming until the next big title comes out or are just in love with 2-D games, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is worth checking out for 1200 Microsoft points.  For those of you who are looking at a number-based system in the reviews, this game gets a 5 out of 5 and this pie isn’t a lie.

Ever wanted to aquire Marvel vs Capcom, but wasn’t quite up for paying the $15 to download it from the Playstation Network. Well if that’s the case, then wait no longer. Campcom has announced they will be having sales on their premier content for the next few weeks.

Feb 18th – 24th you can pick up Marvel vs Capcom 2 ($7.49)
Feb 25th – Mar 3rd you can pick up Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix ($7.49)
Mar 4th – 10th you can pick up Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Remix ($4.99)
Mar 11th – 17th you can pick up Age of Booty ($4.99)
Mar 18th – 24th you can pick up 1942: Joint Strike (4.99)

Great downloads and good prices, so if you have been waiting to get these games this is a great time to take advantage of these offers.