Monday, July 11, 2011

Today in the World of Games for 7/11/11



We finally get a Riddler trailer for Batman: Arkham City and as expected, he has more of a presence story-wise this time around than Arkham Asylum with all those hidden goodies throughout the game. Of course, he is not the main villain in this sequel, but it is still nice he's still in as just one of the problems Batman has to deal with. Honestly though, I'm kind of in blackout mode for Arkham City other than seeing some trailers because I know it is going to blow people's minds when it comes out in October.



Yes, I'm still playing Mortal Kombat here and there (check out last weekend's Box Arena stream where I pretty much was a pot monster in that tourney) as Rain is the next downloadable character for next week. I like the DLC for this game so far as Skarlet is pretty much a sheninegans-like character with tons of potential as she has the tools to be up in the tiers. Kenshi, which was released last week, is pretty easy to pick up and play with simple combos, zoning tools, etc. Rain finally makes his appearance in this game as the last ninja because of course the ninjas are too good in this game (maybe not Scorpion even though he's obviously easy to learn). I enjoyed using him in the broken Mortal Kombat Trilogy where he has too many tools to dish out the damage. Most of those moves are back here from the roundhouse kick to the other side of the screen, his fireball that makes opponents float for a limited time, and lightning. Even from the trailer above, the combo potential is easily there for simple 30% damage and so on along with a long distance x-ray. Unfortunately, the downloadable characters are banned from Evo even though I'm starting to pick up Kenshi and now Rain along with my Smoke and Ermac. There's still a fourth downloadable character that is not revealed, but we have to probably wait till next month for that.



WWE Brawl is definitely not original in terms of its title, but yup, this is another WWE game attempting to break away from the simulation aspects of their yearly offerings. I think this is the All Stars team doing this one and obviously a departure from any other WWE game out in recent years. They're turning up the fantasy even further as it reminds me of Def Jam Icon mixed with Power Stone. Wrestlers get special powers now such as John Cena' Chain Storm for some crazy stuff. Who knows if this will turn out any good, but then again most of us were skeptical how good All-Stars can be and yet that turned out fun. WWE Brawl is currently slated for release next year on the obvious platforms.




Saint's Row: The Third continues to look as absurd and insane as any other open-world game in existence. Even the pre-order bonus which is some wacky Japanese guy named Professor Genki. This trailer does a pretty good job of selling this pack being similar to some crazy Japanese ad. I probably said this multiple times, but the Saint's Row franchise has basically turned Grand Theft Auto into a fun playground of insanity. Even Rockstar Games probably wouldn't push the envelope into that amount of absurdity with their current gen games since GTA has turned to into a more cinematic, story-driven approach. Anyway, Saint's Row: The Third is still planned to come out in November, aka the most crowded month of game releases because of the holiday season.