Dead to Rights: Retribution is the newest game to hit the market this week, and having to compete with some tough competition as a third person shooter.
This game has players take control of the good cop officer Jack Slate with the aid of his K9 companion Shadow, fighting the rise of street gangs with an emerging conspiracy. Bursting out cheesy one liners and forgettable character interaction, there isn’t much for player to hold onto.
Retribution players like a standard 3rd person, with 10 chapters to complete, each containing a stealth in which you take control of Shadow. The rest of the time you play as Jack, taking out enemies with head shots or snapping necks, and constantly ditching and replacing weapons from fallen enemies. The 8-10 hour experience will be alright familiar with the standard issue weapons; assault rifle, shotgun and pistol. And with no additional modes there’s no incentive to go any further.
The combat system allows for a mix of gunplay and hand to hand combat and the all effective take down move. With the melee combat component, the gunplay it’s a little more forgiving than usual, allowing for easy kills with not a lot of stress and some ridiculous headshot whilst bind firing. But beware of your step as no grenade indicators can leave biting the dust. Shadow can also be commanded via the D-pad with basic attack, stay commands, this additions adds for some cool take down plays but won’t revolutionize the game play. Unfortunately with some dazed and an outright kamikaze attempt from some enemies will make for some all too easy kills.
This game won’t win you on presentation, with basic and some outright ugly visuals and music that will be remembers for its annoying nature. Retribution just steps up to the line and it’s a disappointment because of it.
Overall a needed graphical boost like Gears of War 2 and a more engaging and well written story like Mass Effect 2 would have blasted Retribution out of the sewers and into charts. Sadly this will be a game played once and stuffed in the draw; an all too common standard issue game with no stand out features won’t cut it in these days. If you’re looking for another game to play and finish and have the cash, by all means give this a shot, for others; bigger and better games, worth the money will here soon enough.
Disney Interactive Studios announced today that a demo of Split/Second, is available now via Xbox LIVE. The demo allows players to experience the Airport Terminal level in race mode. Players will race through a fictional airport terminal taking out opponents by triggering events, such as bringing down the air traffic control tower and a remotely piloted cargo plane, in a race to the finish line.
The Split/Second demo will be available exclusively on Xbox LIVE until May 11, when it will also become available on PSN.
Two new DLC packs for Just Cause 2 were announced recently. Available April 29th is the Black Market Aerial Pack and on May 25th you can get your hands on the Black Market Boom Pack.
The Black Market Aerial Pack will include:
• F-33 Dragon Fly Jet Fighter: a versatile attack aircraft, equipped with twin missiles and quad-mounted mini-guns
• Multi-lock Missile Launcher: a devastating weapon of destruction featuring laser-guided auto-lock on up to four targets
• Parachute Dual Thrusters: twin parachute-mounted jets which transform Rico’s trademark parachute into one of the most nimble and powerful attack platforms.
The Black Market Boom Pack will contain the following:
• Quad Rocket Launcher: half shotgun, half rocket launcher, all carnage
• Cluster Bomb Launcher: the natural successor to the grenade launcher
• Air Propulsion Gun: a highly experimental jet-powered blast weapon, powerful enough to send vehicles and soldiers skywards.
Both DLC packs will go for $1.99 on the PlayStation Network and 160 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live. No word on PC option for these DLC’s, shame.
The first DLC for Modern Warfare 2 has now hit Xbox Live. The Stimulus Map pack gives you five new maps to play. Well, three are new anyway. Crash and Overgrown from the first Modern Warfare game are included in the pack, along with Salvage, Bailout and Storm.
The map pack costs 1200 points and is available to download for Xbox Live users now. PS3 and PC players of Modern Warfare 2, will have to wait a couple more weeks before the DLC hits those game versions. For those who download, Infinity Ward are offering players double XP this weekend (April 2nd – 4th) while playing.
The first DLC for Modern Warfare 2 is headed to Xbox 360 on March 30th and I’ve got some screenshots and details for you guys (thanks to gametrailers.com). Of the five new multiplayer maps Bailout, Storm, and Salvage are new, while Crash and Overgrown are making a return appearance from the original Modern Warfare. The DLC will set you back 1200 MS Points or $15 bucks when it debuts later on PS3 and PC. Check out the EBA Gallery for the five new screens showing off each of the new maps.
There is alot of discussion on whether this is a fair price or not, i doubt these maps will get used alot as most people wont pay that much, like the patch updates for MW1, no one on PC ever updated and if you did you’d lose access to some fo the best servers available. Personally I’m not a online shooter player, so I wont hesitate in rejecting this offer, not unless i had a extremely better internet plan, i got really into online play and if i join a clan that is going to use them on regular basis.
News in the gaming world is that apparently the weekly circular for K-Mart is saying that the store is selling Just Cause 2 for $44.99 from its release day of March 23 thru Saturday March 27th. I’m assuming this is in the states though. If you’re remotely interested in picking up this game, don’t pass this up! Amazon is offering a similar deal with a $15 credit for future game purchases, but K-Mart is just givin’ you your money back. Nice!
If you haven’t played the demo, you can do so now on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox. I highly recommend this game, and i will indeed be picking it up in the coming weeks. You can also see a ton of media about the game here to educate yourself about this jumping and grappling destructo-ganza! At $44.99 – you might wanna pick it up[.
Microsoft have today released the Game Room on XBLA. The Game Room is free to download and is around 300MB. There are also two game packs which can also be downloaded for free. The two game packs give you the following games:
Adventure
Armor Battle
Asteroids Deluxe
Astrosmash
Centipede
Battlantis
Crystal Castles
Gravitar
Lunar Lander
Red Baron
Combat
Finalizer
Football
Tempest
Jungler
Millipede
Outlaw
Road Fighter
Realsports Tennis
Sea Battle
Scramble
Skiing, Mountain Madness/Super Pro
Space Armada
Space Hawk
Shao-lin’s Road (Kicker)Star Raiders
Super Cobra
Sub Hunt
Tutankham
Yar’s Revenge
However you can only play each game once before you have to buy it. You can either use your game tokens (20 are awarded when you launch the game for the first time), or you can buy the game, which also allows you to place it in your arcade. Your arcade has three levels and you can change the theme of each room as well as decorate it, which also awards achievement points. In total Game Room has 1000 achievement points and you can get 80 for just a couple minutes play. The rest however, will require you to purchase items with Microsoft points.
Because it has been launched today, there are a few things which still need working out and tweaking. Currently the server is unavailable to connect to but, Microsoft are aware of these issues and are in the process of fixing them.
Today BioWare sent word that the upcoming Mass Effect 2 DLC, Kasumi – Stolen Memory, has been priced and is on track for a release in April. The price of the new content is 560 Microsoft points or $7, even if you are a member of the Cerebrus Network, making it the first DLC in the game to be charged for separate from the Network. The content looks to provide a similar amount of play time as the previously delivered downloadable missions, except of course you get a new character to join your team. Who, judging by the picture looks pretty awesome, nice stealthy assassin?
You can check out a montage of game play from the DLC here and fresh screens here to help determine whether or not you want to purchase the content. Is it about time BioWare started charging for some of this DLC or should the Stolen Memory content have been included in the Cerebrus Network like everything else? Players who have purchased this DLC please comment to let others know of its strengths and weakness.
In my opinion a new character is always a worthwhile purchase, and for $7 you could always get something worse for more, the day I get Mass Effect 2 I will be downloading all available DLC’s before starting the game. (Thanks to gametrailers.com for links)
The information brought back from an interview with Brian Leahy, of Shacknews.com, revolves primarily around the matchmaking functionality in the game, but it is quite interesting. Included in the reveal are the Active Roster, Queue-Joining, and Arena Playlists.
The Active Roster
Will allow players to see more detailed information about their friends who are playing, such as what map they are in, who they are partied with, how much time is left in their match, etc. This allows the player to see all their friend information from right in the game, as opposed to using the 360 dashboard.
Queue-Joining
Will allow the player to join players during a match instead of having to wait for the current match to end. The Queue-Joining feature will attach you to the player to be joined and then bring you in as soon as the game will allow.
Arena Playlists
Players are ranked into skill divisions based on month long play sessions. Arena Playlists will only be for Slayer and Team Slayer game types, but are designed to really help people (and parties) pair up with others of their same skill level. This is a perennial issue in multiplayer and it will be interesting to see how well this addition will tackle the issue.
It seems that Bungie is really focusing some attention on the experience around the experience of Halo: Reach’s multiplayer. Those of you who still own Halo 3: ODST will get to see how well these features are implemented on May 3rd, when the closed beta launches to the clamoring masses.
IGN posted on their website today that they have learned that BioWare will be releasing more DLC for Mass Effect 2. The upcoming DLC will feature a new character, Kasumi, a stealthy vixen of the female persuasion that you will meet at the Citadel. Did the Captain order some strange? A new potential flame emerges, the aroma of jealous I smell perhaps. Here’s hoping for a cat fight.
The Kasumi content will add about an hour and a half of game play as well as some new items and you will be able to access it regardless of where you are in the story.
As a matter of note, this DLC marks the first one that Bioware will be charging for – even if you are a member of the Cerberus Network. While there is no indication as to how much BioWare intends to charge for the content, we do know that it will be available for download on April 6thfor Xbox and PC.
Charging for DLC, how disappointing. You had as on the hook Bioware, with your free DLC’s, new armour, weaponry even access to a vehicle and then, BAM! Slaps us down with a possible new character to spice up your team, but there’s a catch, there always is.
Entries (RSS)