MGS4 Theatrical Trailer - Its almost here!

This is like the last trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4 and it is a month away from release now. My own thing with the MGS games is that I rather watch the long cutscenes since it can be an amazing movie because of its crazy story than play the game. After playing it for 15 minutes last year at E for All, I would still give it a chance to play it through once I get my PS3 (Hopefully this summer) to witness the end of Kojima's famed series. For Metal Gear Online, it almost plays like Subsistence online to me with some changes and the revamped controls hopefully make it better because the learning curve is still a little steep rather than pick up and play. Plus, this next four weeks will see a huge MGS4 marketing campaign of pushing the game to as many people as possible, but then again MGS4 is the true definition of hardcore gaming to me compared to this weekend's release of Wii Fit. Good luck to Konami to hopefully spread out the MGS4 love before June 13.

The New Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Trailer

It looks good so far and this new approach seems interesting with all the vehicles and construction. Good thing Rare doesn't want to do Banjo 1 again in HD, so I call this sort of a reboot for this franchise. IGN is probably right that this game will make or break for Rare being with Microsoft, and the stab at Nintendo with the 8-bit Mario might piss them off a little bit. I think this trailer should be up on Marketplace by now and I need to read the previews that just went up for this and Viva Pinata 2.

In other Microsoft news, Too Human is out in August 19 = Good!!

Rare finally revealing Killer Instinct 3?

Microsoft's press event at Europe should be revealed to the interwebs tomorrow while some stuff have leaked so far like Banjo-Kazooie 3 (now subtitled Nuts & Bolts) with platforming and lots of vehicles and Viva Pinata 2: Trouble in Paradise. It seems like that's all that Rare wants to reveal this week, but these pics I stumbled upon in this NeoGAF thread are interesting. Is this the inevitable Killer Instinct 3? Now I know the KI games weren't really great fighting games, but what they tried with it like Ultra Combos and finishers felt cool. The characters also were cool like favorites Fulgore, Jago, Orchid, and Glacius. Honestly, I won't mind a KI3 just because I'm curious how Rare would make this series relevant again. Then again, the majority doesn't want it to happen just in case they ruin the series with a new one.

BlazBlue = "Guilty Gear" for the new generation

Over at Japan, there was a location test for Arc System Works' newest fighter, BlazBlue. Simply, this is what I call Guilty Gear for the new generation. It looks like Guilty Gear, but in HD, as well as a whole new set of characters that are influenced by Sammy's famed fighting series. It also plays like it too which is great for the hardcore fighting crowd that loves the complexity and the style of Guilty Gear. I had little experience with the Guilty Gear games with XX Reload on Xbox being online and 20 bucks when it came out. I rather just watch good people play it at my school (We have Accent Core currently) or tournaments. I thought about buying Accent Core randomly for the Wii, but I'll took the pass. BlazBlue looks it will still have the same learning curve as Guilty Gear which is fine by me as noobs and mashers won't get away pulling off crazy moves from the get go. I won't mind getting into this one if this ever come out stateside for a bit or on PS3 soon. There are some rumors circulating about Guilty Gear X3, but I'll wait till it is officially true especially with GG2 Overture finally coming out to the States in a month or two being overpriced (I won't mind 40 bucks, but 60 is pushing it). BlazBlue is just another reason that fighting games are coming back to take over (especially for the hardcore crowd).

Off-topic - Expect my Mario Kart Wii review likely tomorrow and I'm 51% done with GTA4, so expect another installment of A Day in the Life at Liberty City sometime this week as well.

Banjo-Kazooie 3 or Banjo Threeie?? (First pics)

As Microsoft's "Pre-E3" press event is sometime this week I think, the details are slowly leaking out about what would be there. Gears of War 2 is a guarantee after seeing the new footage, but one of the most curious games people awaiting to see is the long awaited Banjo-Kazooie 3 or Banjo-Threeie (Rare hasn't confirmed a title yet). The first pics were leaked from some European magazine and discussed in this NeoGAF thread and it is a start from what I'm seeing. I was a fan of the first Banjo-Kazooie beating it 100% on the N64 and it was a pretty good platformer that sticked to conventions that Mario 64 started while adding some new stuff like Kazooie's actions of flying and shooting. I skipped Banjo-Tooie at the time because it was late in the N64 generation, but I have high hopes for this one if it brings back what was great about the first one spicing it up for this generation. Then again, if this one is coming out in the wrong time of the holiday season (Gears 2 obviously), then I going to take a pass. Maybe Super Mario Galaxy has raised the bar for platformers too much and Banjo 3 needs to set some new standards for the genre if it still wants to be relevant for gaming.

Definitely Bigger and Badder... (The new Gears 2 footage)

Last night was the world premiere reveal of first gameplay for Gears of War 2 and just like what CliffyB said in the beginning, it is definitely bigger and badder than ever. Graphically, it is marginally improved from Gears 1 as the big debate in the NeoGAF thread about this is whether or not this game is running at 60 frames per second. From what I seen, it seems like 60 fps, but it won't stick to it throughout the game. One of the significant improvements is the scale of the battle scenes since there would be more levels similar to the last level in Gears 1 of riding in vehicles taking out numerous Locust forces. The amount of Locust running on the ground that battle is crazy and Epic is nailing what they showed off at GDC with their Unreal Engine 3.5 demo (insert meat box joke). The lighting has also been improved as well since that level is perfect to show it off.

As for the gameplay, it is typical Gears with the infamous stop and pop style even though there is not enough of that in this level, which is okay. The weapons in this video have received some changes like the Lancer getting a new look, the Hammerburst being more semi-automatic, and the pistol being more of a burst style. They added enemy shields to Gears 2 now and that's cool how it will play out in both campaign and multiplayer, which makes the pistol more versatile than it should be. Along with the human shields, Marcus can break their necks for more satisfactory killing. The chainsaw duel is also in this video where you have to mash B the quickest to eliminate the enemy, which makes me curious how this will be handled on multiplayer. Lots of Brumaks in this level which is awesome and an example of the improved scale of the action and this seems to be an early level in the game, which means Epic is straight up starting big with the campaign and the action keeps rising and rising till the end with more big and bad bosses we never seen yet. For the sound, it is the same as Gears 1 with the one-liner dialogue (there's not much of that in this video) and the fact a surround sound system is destined to make this game be awesome. 

Overall, this gameplay footage of Gears 2 is living up to what Epic wants it to be and that's good to me. The elements that made Gears 1 amazing are here and not tampered that much, but better. The action is more intense because of the improved scale of the battles and the new weapon changes so far has made fans happy. I was a little worried that Gears 2 may not deliver the same impact as the first one, but boy I'm wrong and this fall is going to be great for this 360 exclusive killer app. Might as well start the hype machine now for this one even though it won't have the same gigantic success as GTA4 sales-wise.

LOTR Conquest = LOTR Battlefront

EA and Pandemic announced today a new Lord of the Rings game, called LOTR Conquest, and it is coming out this fall on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and DS. The developers have simply called this Lord of the Rings Battlefront as it is pretty much similar to those Star Wars games that came out last generation, but now the LOTR universe gets the treatment. While there are many ways to relive the greatest battles of the movies and books in past LOTR games like the beat-em-ups based on the movies and the Battle for Middle-Earth RTS series, Conquest throws a different spin on the LOTR universe being a normal dude like a warrior or an archer at the various battlefields like Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep, and then as the battle progresses doing well, you can play as the hero characters for a limited period of time (Gandalf, Aragorn, Sauron, and more) just like Star Wars Battlefront 2. I'm curious about how Pandemic will balance out the gameplay with the good and evil factions since they did a decent job with the Star Wars Battlefront games. Multiplayer is currently limited to a maximum of 8 players even though there are so many CPU controlled characters to worry as well. While we are not getting Star Wars Battlefront 3 anytime soon, Lord of the Rings: Conquest does fill the void for a Battlefront game in this generation of games and hopefully it will be pretty good. I have high hopes for this since I liked Star Wars Battlefront for what it brings to the table even though I didn't play Battlefront 2 that much.