Underwater Stage and Riley the COD Dog Gameplay Debuted for Call of Duty: Ghosts

The live gameplay reveal for Call of Duty: Ghosts has just been shown giving gamers an early look at what the press are going to see at E3 in a few days’ time.

The demo begins with an underwater section that resembles many of the stealthy follow missions in previous Call of Duty games. You follow your AI partner around some highly detailed reefs, populated by schools of fish and apparently not-that-hungry sharks. The demo was running on ‘next-gen hardware’ but some of the finer detail was lost due to the live stream nature of the feed. We’re sure a shiny HD version of the demo will emerge over the next few days though.

After another bit of stage chatter, we finally get to see the COD Dog in action, or should I say, Riley. Infinity Ward have named the canine after his namesake in a few previous Call of Duty titles. I know, I thought  they were going to go for Price too when they mentioned pleasing fans.

Riley looks awesome though, and we’ll be able to directly control him. This is reasoned-out by him having a pop-up camera mounted on his back and vibrating sensors behind each ear telling him which direction to move in. The German shepherd can be sent to silently dispatch lone targets. Well, silent apart from their terrified screams.

Commands can also be issued, but this may be something the AI takes care of. Upon cracking the glass in a window, the AI partner simply says ‘search’ and Riley smashes through, alarming a group of guards inside before the door suddenly explodes in slow-motion with one enemy soldier flailing to stop Riley eating his face and the others barely even noticing your presence in what appears to be Ghost’s version of a ‘breach’ assault.

The demonstration closes with an impression of the E3 arena’s 120-foot screen showing a montage. Sadly, this looks very thin on your laptop or TV as they try to cram in the whole image.

Just in case you missed the presentation on your Machinima App on your Xbox 360 because it crashed (well worth £30 a year, Microsoft), here’s a link to the replay on the Call of Duty site. Just skip the 30-minute countdown to get to the presentation. We’ll bring you a YouTube link as soon as possible.

It may only be a glimpse, but we’re looking forward to the November 5th release date already.

Uncharted 3, XCOM and LBP Karting Coming to PS Plus

Sony’s super-generous premium membership package has once again seemingly paid for itself in a single month with another bevvy of games for your collection. Members will be able to download the following titles for free from Wednesday: Uncharted 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown and LittleBigPlanet Karting. Continue reading Uncharted 3, XCOM and LBP Karting Coming to PS Plus

Wizard and Amazon Trailers For Dragon’s Crown

Here’s the latest batch of character gameplay videos for the upcoming side-scrolling beat em’ up / action RPG hybrid, Dragon’s Crown, for the PS3 and Vita. The Amazon warrior makes the previously-revealed top-heavy Sorceress look like a nun, with an outfit seemingly made of string. Questionable art direction aside, the game is looking like an old-school riot to play. Continue reading Wizard and Amazon Trailers For Dragon’s Crown

Daylight Bringing First Person Survival Horror to PS4

Previously announced for the PC, the Zombie Studios developed titles will now also be coming to PS4 early next year. Running on the Unreal 4 engine, the game will feature procedurally generated stages, meaning no two playthroughs will be the same and also looking for walkthroughs on YouTube will be rather difficult.

The first-person perspective could help to really pull you into the game. Using only the light from a mobile phone you’ll be investigating creepy locations like hospitals, sewers and so on – all with a similar decor to your average nightmare influenced by Silent Hill or the Saw movies. The Ps4’s camera will also take pictures of you at the precise moment a scary scene takes place to perfectly capture that awkward moment you crap yourself. See, that Share button is so going to pay for itself.

There’s a new trailer after the break along with an older video showing a bit of gameplay below it too. Continue reading Daylight Bringing First Person Survival Horror to PS4

Tales of Xillia Trailer – Wishes of Hope

The PS3’s next essential RPG is but a few scant months away and here’s another trailer for you. We’re presuming all the drama will make more sense when we get our hands on the game on August 9th. There’s a typical lack of gameplay (you can see some here though), but you do get to see both anime and in-game engine cutscenes, both of which are looking great. Continue reading Tales of Xillia Trailer – Wishes of Hope

New Ride to Hell: Retribution Trailer Rocks Beards, Boobs and Bikers

We’re getting ever closer to the release of Ride to Hell: Retribution later this month and here’s the latest trailer. Expect cheesy dumb-ass dialogue, cleavage, shotguns and one man and his hog leaping over a helicopter.

Gameplay is once again a bit thin on the ground in this trailer for the sandbox biker-gang adventure, but the grindhouse feel to the game does have a certain appeal. Gameplay will feature hand-to hand combat on the ground but the motorcyle combat is what we really want to get our hands on, mainly to fill the Road Rash-shaped void in our hearts. Continue reading New Ride to Hell: Retribution Trailer Rocks Beards, Boobs and Bikers

Pool Nation (Review)

With only Hustle Kings to really compete with, Pool Nation enters the digital pool hall looking to wipe the floor with the posers. No cutscenes, no irritating voice-overs, just pool. We like it already.

You can dive straight into the lengthy tournament campaigns without bothering with the tutorials if you just want to get stuck in. Basic shots are a breeze. Some very handy aiming lines are turned on by default showing the path of the white ball and a separate path for the ball you’ll hit, making even the sharpest angled shots effortlessly simple.

Continue reading Pool Nation (Review)

Three New Tales of Xillia Trailers Released

Namco Bandai have released three new trailers for Tales of Xillia, the Japanese JRPG that is finally coming to Western gamers in August after nearly two years of jealous waiting. The game was met with widespread critical acclaim when released in Japan and even a sequel was released in 2012. Namco will need to see some decent sales of the first game in the West before they consider bringing the second game too.

The new videos show Xillia’s opening sequence and gameplay in the form of character demonstrations for the rather reserved Rowen and the much more feisty Leia. The action-heavy approach the series takes has proved very popular with fans over the years and we enjoyed the recent Tales of Graces F too with Matt awarding 8/10 in his review. You may have also noticed that earlier today we reported that a HD re-release of Tales of Symphonia is coming to PS3. It’s taken a while but JRPG’s seem to finally hitting their stride on the PS3. Enjoy the new videos after the break. Continue reading Three New Tales of Xillia Trailers Released

Tales of Symphonia: Chronicles Coming to PS3

Tales of Symphonia is getting the HD treatment and will be coming to the PS3 in October in Japan and the US and EU in early 2014. The HD re-release will also include Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, a title previously only available on the Wii.

The new title was announced to mild hysteria at the Tales of Festival in Japan, an event that celebrates the many Tales of games seen over the years. Western releases of some of the games in the series has been a bit sporadic, but Tales of Graces F did well last year and the upcoming Tales of Xillia looks set to ride the resurgent wave of JRPGs we’ve been seeing of late.

Check out the announcement trailer after the break for a look at the newly polished cutscenes with a bit of gameplay in-between all the rabid screams of excitement from the crowd. I think their heads might explode if Final Fantasy VII HD ever gets announced. Continue reading Tales of Symphonia: Chronicles Coming to PS3

The Last of Us Demo Available Now – If You Own God of War: Ascension

Months after God of War: Ascension released, the promised demo for The Last of Us ‘included’ with the game is finally available for download.

Simply load up Ascension (then wait for wait for over 600MB of updates if you’ve not played it for a while) and choose the demo from the main menu. This takes you to the PSN store to download the 132MB demo. Quit out and select the demo from your XMB then roll your eyes and go and make a brew while the rest of the demo downloads its remaining 2GB. Continue reading The Last of Us Demo Available Now – If You Own God of War: Ascension

The Sunday Seven: Reasons You Want The Last of Us

I recently took advantage of Game’s extensive The Last of Us lock-in event tour (dates still available) to get some hands-on experience with the game. Naturally, I left wanting the game more than ever. Naughty Dogs’s post-apocalypse survival adventure looks set to offer so much more than the never-ending line of zombie games and shooters out there. So, I felt it deserved the Sunday Seven treatment this week. Here are seven reasons you should really want to get your hands on The Last of Us. Continue reading The Sunday Seven: Reasons You Want The Last of Us

REPORT: Original Far Cry Coming to Consoles in HD

A HD re-release of the original Far Cry game has been spotted on the Brazilian Ratings Board. With the original 2004 release being a PC exclusive, this is good news for PS3 and 360 gamers.

The Crytek  developed shooter was set in tropical locations similar to the ones we loved in Far Cry 3 and is something console gamers would probably be keen to investigate. Ubisoft haven’t officially announced the HD makeover yet, but with Far Cry 3 shifting over six million units and Blood Dragon proving to be a big hit, we think this is a no brainer. The Brazilian Ratings Board were also behind the early unveiling of Blood Dragon, so this is probably legit.

[GamesRadar]

Watch Lengthy The Last of Us Gameplay and Q&A Session

Eager to see some more The Last of Us footage? Of course you are. Here’s a repeat of the livestream event held by PlayStation Access where we get to see a live demo, interviews with developers Naughty Dog, followed by Q&A with them and the actress playing Ellie, Ashley Johnson. It’s an hour and twenty minutes long, so why not sit back and play it on your TV if you can, it’s better than watching a Hollyoaks omnibus or whatever shite’s stinking up the TV on a Sunday afternoon. Continue reading Watch Lengthy The Last of Us Gameplay and Q&A Session

Microsoft’s Official Statement on Pre-Owned Games

Microsoft’s public mouthpiece, Major Nelson, has provided an official statement on the new Xbox One console and the conflicting reports surrounding how it will handle pre-owned games.

“The ability to trade in and resell games is important to gamers and to Xbox. Xbox One is designed to support the trade in and resale of games. Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete. We will disclose more information in the near future.” Continue reading Microsoft’s Official Statement on Pre-Owned Games

The Walking Dead: Retail Edition (Review)

After receiving widespread critical acclaim over the course of the first season of the episodic download game series, The Walking Dead has finally followed the tracks and shuffled its way to retail. Telltale have missed an opportunity though as this release features no extras, like making of videos, interviews and so on. Hell, if they’d chucked a poster in they could have called it the Collector’s Edition.

I’m making a fuss about this because as many of you will be aware you can download the series on PSN/XBLA for around £15 or even cheaper on PC or during a sale, but the RRP for this is £30. I love having physical copies of games, but you may want to buy this digitally or wait until this version drops in price, which it surely will. At least with this on the shelves it may stop people buying Activision’s awful -entirely unrelated- The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct by mistake.

Continue reading The Walking Dead: Retail Edition (Review)

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Review – Finding redemption

Ah, the old west. It’s good to be back. Techland’s last Juarez title (The Cartel) opted for a modern setting and suffered from a large dose of ‘bloody awful’ leaking from every festering orifice. So, um yeah, we weren’t fans.

However, I was a huge fan of the game before that, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, which featured a fantastically realised Wild West setting during and after the Civil War. After the mega success of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, you would have thought that Ubisoft would have insisted Techland cranked out a Wild West follow up to Bound in Blood. Well, several years later (now that the Wild West bandwagon has long gone) we have one in the form of Gunslinger, a low-priced download-only game. Continue reading Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Review – Finding redemption

Metro Last Light Demo Shows Alternate Play Styles

The latest Metro: Last Light video is all gameplay and goes a great job of showing how you can approach the game with a variety of different playstyles. The stage shown is underground with Artyom needing to get past a group of human enemies.

The first approach shown is traditional FPS fare. So shoot everyone then? Enemies make good use of cover and regularly try to flank the player. Red damage indicators show successful hits, with headshots showing an extra burst which is particularly handy in the darker scenes.

The other approaches show a stealthier take on getting past enemies. Light bulbs can be shot out at distance or unscrewed quietly if you’re up close. The dynamic lighting is amongst the best we’ve seen before. The approaching helmet-lights of a guard are very useful when sneaking around in the dark too. Approaching the stage quietly allows you to overhear conversations, which will help to flesh out the lore around the game’s story, which always feels more natural than finding scraps of journal in random places.

Avoiding lengthy gun battles also helps to save ammo, which will be very rare in some stages of the game. From what we’ve seen, playing the stealth angle seems much more interesting anyway as we have plenty of traditional FPS games on the market. Metro: Last Light is released May 17th on PS3, 360 and PC. Enjoy the trailer after the break and don’t forget to have a look at Jon’s hands-on preview too. Continue reading Metro Last Light Demo Shows Alternate Play Styles

Metal Gear Rising Blade Wolf DLC Trailered

We’ve been waiting to get our hands on this cyborg hound since that first encounter in the Revengeance demo last year and next week we’ll finally be able to in the latest DLC drop. Featuring a new chapter to play through along with unique boss encounters, players take control the robotic wolf, named LQ-84i. And you though Amaterasu was a strange name for a wolf in Okami.

Here’s the official blurb, “Reactivated by Desperado Enforcement’s leader Sundowner and serving under Mistral, the DLC reveals LQ-84i’s story prior to his battle and eventual partnership with Raiden, and his transformation into Blade Wolf. Players can battle countless enemies using an arsenal of weapons and abilities, culminating in an all-new boss battle.”

There’s a trailer for you after the break. It’s all in Japanese, but the action makes it well worth a watch. The DLC arrives on the 360 May 14th and PS3 May 15th. Continue reading Metal Gear Rising Blade Wolf DLC Trailered

John Carpenter Wants to Make a Dead Space Movie

“I would love to make Dead Space, I’ll tell you that right now. That one is ready made.”

Those are the words spoken by one of cinema’s most respected and most successful horror movie directors, John Carpenter, in an interview with Game Informer [reported by Videogamer]. He’s the man behind the Halloween series, The Fog and The Thing. He’s also had success with nail-biting tension and action in films like Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape From New York.

Carpenter also said, “The first game was more – I guess it was like Alien – but not quite. It was a little different than that.” See, he can even see where it started to go wrong! Continue reading John Carpenter Wants to Make a Dead Space Movie

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (Review)

I should begin this review with a public warning announcement. This Walking Dead game has nothing to do with the multiple award-winning downloadable series The Walking Dead by Telltale Games. Whereas that game was based on the comics, this is based on the AMC TV series and is a first-person action game.

Seeing as the critically acclaimed one that features multiple story choices and plays more likeHeavy Rain than Dead Island has just been released at retail too (review incoming), we wouldn’t want you to pick this one up by mistake.

Continue reading The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (Review)

Gaming reviews, previews and features by Brendan Griffiths