Music Video of the Day for 8/19/10

Drake - "Miss Me" feat. Lil' Wayne

Still waiting for that "Fancy" video Drizzy...

Will Halo: Reach be the Swan Song Bungie Deserves?

It is kind of crazy that Halo: Reach is out in about a month only on the Xbox 360 and even though I haven't really been paying attention to what is new with this new game, I still have my high hopes about being Bungie's swan song to the franchise that made them famous. I do know that they are going all out with a bang with Reach being stacked full of features with the campaign that is solo and cooperative, all the new multiplayer shenanigans that the beta had along with additions, Firefight making a return from ODST, Forge being bigger than ever, and more. Who knows if Reach will be the shooter of the year in terms of how long the multiplayer will last especially with stiff competition by the Call of Duty franchise these days with Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming Black Ops, but I'm pretty sure the shooter crowds will still play all those games as each game does have its own tempo of craziness. I was a little excited about Bungie bringing back some Halo 2 Maps like Ivory Tower and Midship into Reach, but my excitement overall for the game has been on the down low since I don't have a 360 now and having shooter fatigue during my times with that console. We'll see how Halo: Reach does when it comes out next month and I don't mind making a return to the franchise by buying the Reach Slim bundle too.

UPDATE - So the game has been leaked a month early, which is crazy stuff. Good luck avoiding spoilers if you are eagerly awaiting this game to come out.

Why Child of Eden Will Be The Greatest Experience Ever...

EGMi recently had a cover story featuring the game I'm most excited for, which is Child of Eden as they interviewed Testuya Mizuguchi about the game's origins and what the game is really intended to do. As you know, Rez is still one of my favorite games of all-time as a life-changing experience seeing games in a totally different way, so the giddiness had reached its peak with the announcement of Child of Eden at E3 back in June. Just hearing Miz talk about the game above makes me believe in him in delivering the goods as he knows what he is doing to make something truly special. Games these days will still be games, but Child of Eden is not just your ordinary game like how Rez was as it is shaping up to another memorable experience when it comes out next year for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Dance Central is Still My Only Reason to Kinect...

New previews for Harmonix's Dance Central showed up earlier this week on the big game sites and still living up to be the killer app for the Xbox 360's Kinect. It is indeed still my only reason I would buy the thing because it looks like a blast to play with multiple people. Let's just hope I have a decent Kinect setup for a game like this with enough room for people to go crazy. New modes and new songs were announced for the game as it is expected to come out around Kinect's launch on November 4. In the meantime, there's a new trailer above and the Giant Bomb interview for more as well as other shenanigans the guys did.

Clips from Gamescom...

Gamescom, aka Europe's E3, has been going on this week at Germany as more of the same stuff is being shown this time for the European press, but at least new clips and announcements do indeed pop out from the show.



New gameplay footage for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, by Criterion games aka the Burnout people, looks pretty good at 60 frames per second. You can tell that that developers had to input what was amazing in Burnout into Need for Speed from the takedowns (a clip of a car taking out a cop car Burnout style) and the breakneck speed. It does seem like they got the franchise back on track as if Shift was the start of something different yet still good. The instant breaks of seeing what's ahead such as incoming spike strips and helicopters the game tells you can be somewhat of a distraction for people, but it is not for me. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is out in November and shaping up to be one of the racers to get this holiday season.

Another LittleBigPlanet 2 trailer also showed up at Gamescom and even though its more of the same of various things blowing your mind, its once again Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" making us smile as the song for the trailer. The customization elements have been turned up to 11 as the Media Molecule guys do want players to make full games by not just the levels themselves, but adding in voices and even music. All of this is getting crazy as I hope LBP2 delivers once again because I didn't get into the first game that much like not finishing the story mode, creating levels, and so on even though I love what they are doing as a product of creativity. This is also coming out in November only for PS3.

Now, you must be wandering, why Mass Effect 2 again? I played that on the 360 way back in January. Well, EA and BioWare decided to announce this game after all on the PS3 for release next year. Funny thing is that he think everyone that wanted to play ME2 already played it on 360 and who knows how much of the PS3 audience that skipped out earlier this year to wait for this one. Also, there is also no announcement of the first game coming out to PS3 either for the whole story continuation business the 360 version had. EA did claim though that PS3 owners would have a seamless transition to Mass Effect 2 without playing the entire first game. This will be interesting how they would pull this off. Despite the glowing reviews, the game did lose some points to the RPG crowd by being less of a RPG and more of a cover-based shooter. I don't think Mass Effect 2 can replicate the same success on PS3 than on 360 in terms of sales, but we'll see how Sony fans welcome this franchise as hopefully DLC the 360 version had can just be already in the PS3 version when it comes out.

Oh hey, another Ratchet and Clank game is being made by Insomniac only for the PS3. All for One is the series' co-op debut at this game is heavily focused on that with four characters around at all times. This is certainly a departure from what we are used to seeing with the franchise, but hopefully this new shakeup can still make Ratchet relevant in the gaming world as this is the third main game for the Playstation 3. Speaking of Insomniac, they also had another game announced at the show which was only a matter of time anyway as we all expected it, which is Resistance 3. No game footage was being shown in the teaser below as it is a real-time clip with real people just in the Resistance world. Can the third time be the charm for this franchise? It could possibly be as the first two were great games, but never the AAA game Sony wanted it to be. Resistance 3 should be out next fall.

That's it for now, expect another Gamescom post tomorrow.

Music Video of the Day for 8/17/10

Trey Songz - "Bottoms Up" feat. Nicki Minaj

Hey Girl, Hey Girl... Yuuuuupppp!!!

Gaming Video of the Day for 8/16/10

The Intro to "Epic Mickey"

Hopefully this will be one of the critical darlings of the upcoming holiday season.