It’s been thought for years now that the chances of another installment in the incredibly popular Marvel vs Capcom franchise were non-existent. After all,  ever since Capcom lost the Marvel license years ago (which subsequently caused the price of Marvel vs Capcom 2 to spike through the roof on Ebay), Marvel really hasn’t shown much of an inclination to do a sequel regardless of the fact that it would probably make them millions of dollars.  So Capcom went their own way and started developing Street Fighter IV and Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and Marvel contented itself with making really crappy fighting games, sequel after sequel of X-Men Legends, and being absolute dicks to anyone who might’ve infringed on their copyrights.

However, IGN is telling us that Marvel vs Capcom 3 may very well be on the way. According to Kevin Feige, President of Production at Marvel Studios, when asked about the possibility of a sequel to Marvel vs Capcom 2, he said,

“Yes. And maybe sooner than you think”

Marvel vs Capcom (or X-Men vs Street Fighter as it was previously known) has always been about two things -fan service and delivering a kickass fighting game. In MvC 2, Capcom suddenly excelled in both aspects, giving fans over fifty playable characters from both the Capcom and Marvel universe to beat each other up with in one of the most celebrated fighting engines ever created. But what can Marvel vs Capcom 3 bring us?

While I would be content with just more and more characters to play with with absolutely no updated graphics or game play, there’s a strong chance that Capcom is more than likely going to use the new engine designed for Tatsunoko vs Capcom (which looks as gorgeous as it does badass). Though pretty graphics is definitely a good thing, it does mean that there’s a very strong chance that Capcom’s new fighting engine won’t be ready to support over fifty characters-not if they want to release it sometime in the next decade at least. Some characters will get axed (which is actually a mixed blessing some some were pretty useless), but in all likeliehood, Capcom will also use this as an opportunity to introduce some more characters as well.

Here’s a few that I want to see…

 
Zero - Megaman X
He’s fast, agile, and has an awesome beam saber in addition to a variety of melee attacks that he steals from his enemies. And on top of that, he even has a fire punch reminiscent of Ryu -Shoooooooooryuken!

Wesker - Resident Evil
A complete asshole and a maniacal psychopath, the fact that Wesker is infected with some strand of the T-virus means he’s fast, strong, and even more badass than he normally is.

Viewtiful Joe - Viewtiful Joe
Eh, sure, why the hell not?

Dante -Devil May Cry
If Capcom were to add one new character into Marvel vs Capcom 3 it would have to be Dante. Half man half demon, he has a freaking huge sword, twin handguns, and a the powers of the underworld at his command.

The Punisher - The Punisher
Armed with tons of guns, explosives, knives, and an unflinching desire for justice and a bullet in the head of every villian, the Punisher would benefit from a nice arsenal of long range attacks similar to Cable. Only hopefully he wouldn’t be such a cheap bastard.

Jamie “The Multiple Man” Madrox - X-Factor
The Multiple Man has the power to create duplicates of himself which are different facets of his personality. In essence, he can exist in multiple places simultaneously. It also means he can command his own small army. I have absolutely no idea how he would work in a fighting game, but it would be badass if they ever figured out a way.

Hawkeye - The Avengers
There’s already Captain America and Iron Man in Marvel vs Capcom, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to add another member of the Avengers in there. Plus he has a bow and arrow that shoots explosives. That’s awesome.

Carnage - Spider-Man
I think the real question is how Carnage HASN’T appeared in a Marvel vs Capcom game yet. Completely insane and a serial killers, Carnage could be just like Venom. Only faster and considerably more crazy. And freaking cool.

Who else do you think should appear in Marvel vs Capcom 3? I’m sure I’m missing out on a ton of characters.

I think it’s every gamer’s dream to somehow be involved in the video game industry. Whether you’re a writer, a graphic designer, musician, etc. -it’s a gamer’s greatest aspiration to somehow contribute their talents into making the video games that they love to play. While for many this may seem like a pipe dream, for some of the talented musicians and remixers over at OC ReMix, this dream has come true. The upcoming Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (available on Xbox LIVE and the Playstation Network sometime this Fall) will feature tracks arranged by a variety of OC ReMix musicians.

I’ve been a huge fan of OC ReMix for over a year now ever since their release of the Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream, an amazing compilation of remixes from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack, and it’s awesome to see them finally get the recognition that they deserve. All their music is created not for profit, but instead homeage to the video games that have inspired their music, and a love letter to the thousands of fans who visit the website daily.

An interview with OC ReMix with website creator, David Lloyd, can be found in the August issue of GameInformer, and technology blog Ars Technica (via CollegeHumor) has posted an indepth interview with some of OC ReMix’s staff including David Lloyd, Shael Riley, Larry Oji, and Andrew Aversa. Be sure to check it out -it gives some very interesting insight on what went into producing the soundtrack for Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. At the very least, it’s an inspiring and educational read for any aspiring musicians who are hoping to break into the video game industry.

Listed below is a link to the interview as well as OC ReMix’s original remix album (the one that got them noticed by Capcom and ultimately selected to work on the soundtrack) for Street Fighter II, “Blood on the Asphalt”.

Links:
Ars Technica interviews OC Remix Staff (via Collegehumor)
OC ReMix’s Street Fighter II Remix Album “Blood on the Asphalt”

In my last article about Battlefield Bad Company and Electronic Arts, I did little to disguise how incredibly irked I was when I discovered that the game was full of glitches, lag, cheaters, and plagued with massive server instability. My annoyance with them only increased when my emails to their tech support went completely unanswered (they sent me an email a few weeks later asking me how their customer service performed at resolving my issue -I thought that was funny). However, some readers felt my criticism was too harsh or unwarranted, and in retrospect, perhaps I was a bit hard on them. It may have taken them almost a month, but the servers are running fine now and you can no longer exploit glitches to point boost. I still stand by my belief that the game should not have shipped in its original state, but at least I can play it now without bugs and glitches hampering my fun.

Recent purchasers of Electronic Art’s new NCAA College Football 09 and Nascar 09 apparently haven’t been so lucky.

Brian Cook of NCAA Football Fanhouse reports that NCAA 09 game play is full of bugs and glitches. Roster editing is flawed, AI sliders are broken, CPU pursuit angles are messed up (which usually results in the computer being incapable of tackling your players), etc. etc. EA has announced that they’re working on a at least two patches to fix these problems, but Brian reminds us that last year (when NCAA 08 shipped with tons of bugs) it took Electronic Arts almost two months to release these patches.

One very unfortunate gamer has discovered a serious glitch in NASCAR 09 for the Xbox 360 that causes your game to freeze up. The only way to fix it is to delete your game saves and profile and start all over again. It doesn’t matter if you’ve already invested thirty minutes or thirty hours in your game -if you run into this problem you’re pretty much screwed out of all your work. It’s also being reported that Electronic Arts has done nothing so far to address these complaints with absolutely no response being issued to posts in the company’s public forums or tech support emails.

It’s things like this that make me genuinely believe that Electronic Arts does not care the slightest about the quality of their games.  It’s asking a whole lot to believe that these game breaking glitches somehow escaped their tester’s notice, and that Electronic Arts shipped these games out completely oblivious of the plethora of problems plaguing these games. More likely they knew the problems existed, but instead of doing the right thing and delaying the game’s releases until they could iron out the glitches, Electronic Arts decided to sell the games, make their money, and then try to fix the problems later if at all.

I think Kotaku puts it best when they say,

“Seriously, EA Sports, why is it amateur hour all of a sudden? What the fuck is the matter with you people?”

The only thing I can disagree is with the “sudden” part. I’m pretty sure EA has been messing up their games for quite sometime.

Though it’s been the subject of rumors for months now, it was confirmed today that renowned RPG developer, Bioware, (now apart of Electronic Arts following their acquisition earlier this year) is once again at work on the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise.  However, instead of making another single player RPG like the original Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), Jade Empire, Mass Effect, etc. Bioware is taking the franchise online in their debut outting in the vast world of Massive Multiplayer games. Currently, Bioware is currently in production of Dragon Age: Origins for the PC, and given Bioware’s dedication to perfection as well as the humongous amount of work that surrounds succesfully launching a MMORPG, I can’t imagine that the new KOTOR will be released any time in the immediate future. Regardless, there’s two huge reasons to be excited about even the prospect of a MMO KOTOR being in development.

Knights of the Old Republic is an Awesome Franchise
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is still considered by many as being not only one of the best games on the Xbox, not only one of the best Star Wars games ever made, but also one of the best RPG’s ever developed. Balancing an epic story with in depth gameplay based on the Dungeons and Dragons engine, KOTOR ran away with tons of Game of the Year awards and rightly so. Obsidian made Knights of the Old Republic II, and while it failed to live up to the huge standards set by its predecessor, it was still a great game that served to expand the Star Wars universe even more. With two excellent titles providing a valueable resource for both storyline as well as gameplay inspiration, Bioware has more than enough foundation to begin building what could be the next huge MMORPG.

Star Wars Galaxies Sucked
While maybe “sucked” is a bit of a harsh description, Sony Online Entertainment’s take on the Star Wars franchise as a MMORPG in Star Wars Galaxies left much to be desired. It started off well enough, but all too quickly the plethora of little tweaks and changes watered down the experience into continued to ween the game’s once in depth and expansive content until it was barely recognizable once the billionth expansion pack for it rolled around. Star Wars Galaxies had some great ideas, but most of them were executed so poorly that its fan base quickly lost patience and abandoned it. Hopefully Bioware will be able to borrow the ideas that worked, and learn from the ones that didn’t.

It’s Bioware, Baby
There’s really no denying it -Bioware is an amazing developer. To date, they’re responsible for some of the most groundbreaking and excellent RPG’s ever made. The Baldur’s Gate series, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Knights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect -pretty much everything they touch instantly becomes a classic. Even though they have never worked on a MMORPG before, Bioware has proven themselves time and time again as a company that is comitted to quality and excellence. I’m a bit wary of their recently established association with Electronic Arts, but even still, EA is currently producing the upcoming Warhammer Online. If anything, they can contribute their experience with creating MMORPG’s to the development process.

I can’t wait to hear more about this project. I’m a huge MMORPG junky, and the prospect of the loves of my life (Star Wars, MMORPG’s, and Bioware) combining together in one game has me incredibly excited.  Making a succesful MMORPG is no small task, however, and recently, only Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has really been succesful. Tabula Rasa was a flop as was Vanguard. Only Age of Conan has really been able to stand on its own, but even then, they’re struggling in comparison to the ten million strong subscriber base that WoW has. But if anyone can manage to bring down Blizzard, it’s Bioware. It’ll be interesting to see how EA’s Warhammer Online does -hopefully it’ll be some sort of indication of what Knights of the Old Republic the MMO might have to offer.

So it’s been about twenty-four hours since Square-Enix announced yesterday during Microsoft E3 press conference that they were deciding to bring Final Fantasy XIII to the Xbox 360 as well as the Playstation 3 later this year (or early next year) and fan reactions to this startling news have been pretty much what one would normally expect from the denizens of the internet.

Most have expressed shock at this abrupt and surprising decision. While it’s true that Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and XI have made an appearance on the PC (XI also appeared on the Xbox 360), this will be the first time that a major Final Fantasy title will launch simultaneously across multiple platforms. Additionally, Square-Enix has always been renown for their close ties with Sony, and breaking whatever exclusivity agreements they had prior to E3 signifies perhaps the deterioration of a strong relationship that the two companies have shared since Final Fantasy VII debuted on the Playstation over a decade ago in 1997.

Or maybe it’s a simple matter of Square-Enix going where the money is at. While it’s entirely believable that Microsoft may have offered some sort of monetary incentive for Square-Enix to rethink their stance on console exclusivity, it’s also entirely possible that Square-Enix’s decision to put the latest installment in the super popular Final Fantasy franchise was motivated by a fear that Sony’s installbase won’t be enough to recoup the massive expenditures associated with a game as huge of a business venture as Final Fantasy XIII.

Or maybe Square-Enix is really just trying to make the most amount of money possible. They have certainly milked dry the Final Fantasy VII franchise for every cent that it’s worth (I’m still waiting for the Final Fantasy VII remake to be announced) and this is hardly the first time that Square has shifted loyalties. It’s easy to forget that Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) used to be tight buddies with Nintendo until Nintendo decided to opt for the cartridge based Nintendo 64 instead of a CD-based console like Sony’s Playstation. It was definitely a smart move, and I believe a big reason why they haven’t developed multiplatform in the past is merely due to Sony’s overwhelming success in the console market with their Playstation and then Playstation 2.

The Xbox 360 has a humongous install base in Europe and North America, and frankly, it would be foolish for Square-Enix to pass up an opportunity to take a taste of that market. People like to talk about the “loyalty” that Square-Enix owes to Sony, but at the end of the day, the only “loyalty” that they owe is to their own business. Passing up a business opportunity that will potentially make them a lot of money in favor of adhering to this fabled “loyalty” is nothing short of irresponsible.

The only true complaint I can make about Final Fantasy XIII making the jump to the Xbox 360 is the potentiality of a loss of quality in the final product. It’s true that development of the Xbox 360 version won’t begin until after development for the Japanese version for the Playstation 3 is complete, but that doesn’t mean Square-Enix isn’t keeping in consideration the technological limitations of the Xbox 360 in comparison to the Playstation 3. They’ve promised that both versions will be indentical, but that is no guarentee the end product won’t be a degraded version of what it could have been had Square-Enix been focusing exclusively on taking advantage of the Playstation 3’s powerful hardware. In all likliehood, Final Fantasy XIII will ship on multiple discs for the Xbox 360, and while I don’t mind that in the slightest (we’ve been swapping discs since Final Fantasy VII after all), if the game ends up being gimped as a result, I can’t say I will be too happy about that at all.

I criticized Electronic Arts for electing quantity over quality, mass producing tons of games without caring about the quality that ships out. I’ll be very disappointed in Square-Enix if they elect to take the franchise multiplatform only to neglect the quality that the company has become renowned for.

But I suppose that’s something gamers will have to figure out later on once we learn more about Final Fantasy XIII in the coming months.

And how have others been taking the news?

Not well. Not well at all.

Though this video is fake (and hilarious) it’s worth noting that this imitation of an enraged fanboy really isn’t all that disimilar from the plethora of angry posts that have been popping up over internet chat boards like wild fires.

There are some who feel as though Square-Enix is betraying them by taking Final Fantasy XIII multiplatform and are vowing to boycott Square-Enix’s products until they apologize to the Sony community.

That’s the internet for you. A place where everyone’s opinion counts. Sort of.

Definitely the highlight of Microsoft’s otherwise lackluster E3 press conference was the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII is heading to the Xbox 360 in the United States and Europe. Despite being initially announced as an exclusive Playstation 3 title, it appears as though the latest iteration in the Final Fantasy franchise will be appearing sometime after work on the Playstation 3 version is finished later in 2008 (or more likely in 2009).

While shocking to many (especially to Xbox 360 owners) Square-Enix’s decision to take Final Fantasy XIII is not entirely unexpected. They’ve already made it clear that they don’t mind developing for Microsoft with the exclusive Star Ocean: Last Hope, and multiplatform titles Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant also appearing on Microsoft’s gaming console. They have realized that developing titles exclusively for only one game console is not financially viable; developers Rockstar and Capcom have also realized that with their decisions to take Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5 multiplatform. Even with Playstation 3 sales rising in the United States and Europe, there’s no denying that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has a huge presence there. Square-Enix wants a piece of that. With production and development costs often times in the millions of dollars for a title as huge as Final Fantasy, publishers want as large of an audience as possible in order to cover expenses and hopefully turn a profit. Square-Enix is not developing Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 in Asia, however, where the Playstation 3 dominates the market and Xbox 360 owners are few.

According to Kotaku’s liveblog interview with Yoshinori Kitase, producer of Final Fantasy XIII, there’s no official statement on how many discs Final Fantasy XIII will ship on. In all likliehood, given Final Fantasy XIII’s graphical intensity and the fact that Lost Odysee had to ship on four discs, I’m going to hazard a guess and say it will probably ship on more than three discs just like Final Fantasy IX did back on the Playstation.

How Microsoft managed to get Final Fantasy XIII is unknown. Maybe they shelled out enough cash to make Square-Enix go back on their previous statements. Maybe Sony just didn’t pay enough cash to keep Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive. Who knows? It looks like Final Fantasy XIII Versus is still a Playstation 3 exclusive, but given today’s events, anything is really possible.

What does this mean for Sony? There’s no denying that losing Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive is definitely a pretty big blow to their 2008-2009 lineup. Will it be crippling though? Sony still has exclusives like Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, and Killzone 2, but the loss of a huge RPG like Final Fantasy XIII will be hard to make up for. I have trouble beliving that Sony will take the bad news sitting down, however. I’m sure they have some big announcement up their sleeves for tomorrow when they take the stage at E3.

Will it be enough to make their fans forget that they lost Final Fantasy XIII as an exclusive?

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Click HERE for Final Fantasy XIII’s official E3 trailer.

Max Payne was probably one of the coolest video games available for the PC in 2001 (it was eventually ported over to the PS2, Xbox, and even the GBA with varying degrees of success) by not only managing to transform the Matrix’s “bullet-time” effect into a genuinely creative game play mechanic (which has since been abused and raped to death by a plethora of copycats) but also for its incredibly dark storyline that pushed the boundaries of acceptability by featuring infanticide, prostitution, the occult, foul language, drugs, and lots and lots of violence. With Hollywood turning pretty much any semi-promising franchise into a full length film these days (and without any real discretion either -Dragon Ball? Alvin and the Chipmunks?) it only made sense that Max Payne would be picked up. After all, the game’s story obviously took notes from a plethora of cop films like John Woo’s Hard Boiled or Mel Gibson’s.However, while a Max Payne movie might normally sound a great idea, the sad fact is that movie’s based on video games usually end up sucking. Badly. Some have been decent or even good (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children), others downright awful (Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark) while others have been guilty pleasures (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat), but getting a film that simultaneously does the video game justice as well as genuinely being a good movie is really without precedence. After seeing the debut of the Max Payne trailer earlier today, however, I must admit -I’m impressed.

The Look
Max Payne has always had a very distinct, dark, gritty look that was beautifully illustrated through the graphic novel used ingame to tell the story. The movie trailer does a terrific job of emulating the look. Not only does it bathe the film in a world of perpetual darkness (just like the game) but the grain effect also closely mirrors the drawing technique used in the video game.

The Story
Thus far the plot seems to slightly deviate from the game. There’s a few characters here and there that were not in the game, but it looks like most of the major plot points are being more or less followed. Not as closely as fans of the game might have liked, but at the very least, hopefully it won’t completely tangent from the source material like in Hitman. Max Payne’s family is still dead, but while there is no allusion to his partner, Alex, being murdered, at a few different points in the trailer it looks like Max is being chased (as in being shot at with machine guns) by the police. Additionally, it also looks like the director has taken into consideration Max Payne’s frequent drug induced night mares. In the trailer, we see angels or birds swooping down periodically. Either it’s an appreciated artistic touch or God is sending down his legions to kill people. Hopefully the writers won’t do the story a disservice with any embellishments or creative licenses they may take. But hey, it’s Hollywood. We can only assume the worst.

The Actors
Mark Wahlberg was an interesting choice to cast as Max Payne, and Mila Kunis as Mona Sax was another strange selection. However, after seeing the trailer, I’m more or less convinced that they’ll both do an awesome job bringing their characters to life. Mark Wahlberg has already proven himself a very capable actor (as a detective no less as the foul mouthed police sargeant in The Departed), but it’ll be interesting to see if he’s up to the task of bringing Max Payne’s persistantly gloomy monotone and lengthy, poetic monlogues to the big screen.

The Rating
Perhaps the most defining aspect of Max Payne is just how mature it is. Bloody gun play, foul language, drugs, prostitution, satan worship, etc. etc is a prevalent aspect of the game. However, Max Payne is being rated PG-13. That means no blood, no swearing, etc. This may seem like a pretty crippling blow to the effort to remain faithful to the game’s content, but just judging from the trailer, the movie already looks plenty violent. Also, the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight is also based on a dark, violent story and it looks amazing even with a PG-13 rating. It’d be nice to a see a R-rated release, but I’m not too worried about the rating restrictions neutering the film of all its violence and darker themes.

Despite the subconscious fears that tell me this may end up being an average ho-hum action flick or a mediocre video game adaptation, I love the trailer. Unlike so many other video game movies before it, Max Payne actually looks, feels, and sounds like the video game. It’s no small feat considering just how grounded the video game was in all three aspects, and it is commendable that the director has obviously been paying close attention to this fact. I love Max Payne, and while I’d end up seeing the movie on opening day regardless, the trailer has me all the more excited about its release come this October.

Click HERE for the trailer.

With E3 (one of the world’s largest game expositions) right around the corner, it’s time for gamers to sit down and brace themselves for the deluge of gaming information that will hit them incessantly for three days starting July 14th.  E3 is the time for the big three competitors, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft to lay their cards out on the table for the public to see,  giving gamers the chance to see the latest development on previously announced titles and just maybe a sneak peak at new titles to come. Matching up to the caliber of last year’s E3 is going to be a tough act to follow, but looking at the line up thus far, I have a feeling few are going to be disappointed.

From the game’s announced so far, here’s my prediction of the titles that I think will truly blow gamers away during E3.

Killzone 2 -Playstation 3
While the first Killzone was a huge disappointment and failed to live up to its hype of being a “Halo killer”, the gorgeous graphics that we were shown during Sony’s Game Day earlier this year is more than enough to make me excited to see what developers Guerilla Games have to offer in the latest iteration of the Killzone franchise.

Fable 2 - Xbox 360
The original Fable for the PC and Xbox was an awesome game but suffered from the immense amount of hype surrounding it. While it managed to accomplish some aspects of the original design, so many of the different nuasnces that were promised during the game’s initial announcement were dissapointingly missing. This time around, the developers of Fable 2, Lionhead Studios, have promised to actually make good on some of these promises and create Fable 2 into a world where your choices truly dictate the flow of the game. It’ll be interesting to see if they can live up to their word.

God of War 3 - Playstation 3
What more is there to say? It’s God of War! And on the Playstation 3 no less! God of War has more or less become a flagship title for Sony’s gaming console and expectations are enormous, so it’ll be interesting to see how the developers (minus some of the core developers who recently broke away) give Kratos the next generation treatment.

Mirror’s Edge - Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Even though I was less than thrilled with Digital Illusions CE and EA after Battlefield: Bad Company, there’s no denying that their latest title, Mirror’s Edge, has me intrigued. The graphics are beautiful, and the concept of a first person running game intermixed with melee combat and wild acrobatics has definintely never been done before. The trailers have been impressive, and I’m hoping that they’ll reveal some of the actual game play mechanics during the expo.

Borderlands - Playstation 3, Xbox 360, 
Described as a unique hybrid of Diablo meets Mad Max, Borderlands sounds intriguing. The developers, Gearbox Software, have talked about how they’re striving to combine vehicular combat with fully customizable weapons and multiplayer role playing, and while these ambitions definitely sound incredibly awesome on paper, here’s hoping that we see the realization of these aspirations during E3.

Resident Evil 5 -Playstation 3, Xbox 360
While there may not be a whole lot of surprises left when it comes to Resident Evil 5 (the game play trailers have revealed the setting, protagonist, and game play mechanics, leaving little to the imagination….right?) the fact alone that this game looks so incredible makes any new information or game play trailers revealed by Capcom something to be eagerly anticipating.

Castlevania Judgement - Nintendo Wii
To say that the Nintendo Wii’s lineup at E3 is lacking is a major understatement. With no first party titles (Zelda, Mario, Metroid) announced so far and no new peripheral scheduelded to make an appearence, it’s up to good old Castlevania to save the Nintendo Wii’s appearnece at E3. Not a whole lot has been said about the latest Castlevania title, and while the franchise has had some major set backs over the last several entries, here’s hoping that its debut on the Wii restores this vampire hunting game back to is former glory.

Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360
Epic is promising that Gears of War 2 is going to be bigger, better, and bloodier than its hit predecessor (which was already pretty freaking awesome) and with early game play trailers only giving us a small taste of Gears of War 2’s new features (which include chain saw duels, more gory executions, human meat shields, etc.) there’s plenty to be excited when Epic takes the stage in the next couple of days.

Final Fantasy XIII - Playstation 3
There may not be a whole lot of information out on Square-Enix’s latest forray into the well estbalished Final Fantasy franchise, but between this being its debut on Sony’s new next generation hardware and the absolutely jaw dropping screen shots and game trailers wowing audiences since its announcement in 2006, there’s definitely a good reason to keep an eye on this RPG beauty.

TOP PICK

Fallout 3 - Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC
It’s hard to even begin why I’m so excited about Fallout 3. Even if we overlook the fact that its the succesor to one of the best RPG franchises ever on the PC, with the insanely good looking graphics, the Hollywood voice actors, promises of built in morality engine and huge, post apocolyptic landscapes to explore and pillage for new weapons and armor, and the undeniable fact that Bethesda Softworks (the talents behind the hit RPG Elder Scrolls: Oblivion) is crafting this title into a FPS/RPG hybrid, Fallout 3 definitely has the potential to be the biggest hit this coming Fall even with other big hitters releasing around the same time.

Game that I HOPE Will be Shown at E3 (But Probably Won’t)

Deus Ex 3 - PC
Since its announcement last year in November, there hasn’t been any new news about the third installment in the epic Deus Ex series.  Which is a tragedy.

Taking a slight break from my normal lengthy sermons about video games to instead share with you one of the coolest video game related websites on the internet. OCRemix is home to an amazingly large library of remixes from some of your favorite video game music. Merely calling them remixes almost does an incredible disservice to the calibre of music you’ll find here. While it’s true a few tracks fall prey to the conventional sense of the word “remix” by  tossing in a cheesy techno backing or a few random beat, most are complete reworkings of classic tunes. New lyrics, completely new instrumental accompaniement, rewriting an orchestral piece to fit the heavy metal genre,-the amount of time and effort that went into some of these songs are simply breathtaking. Most of these songs aren’t just the amatuer work of a few internet wannabe DJ’s, but true artists who have as large of a passion for music as the video games they use as inspiration for their works.

All the music is entirely free, and I encourage you to check out some of them. The selection is enormous,encompassing titles like Final Fantasy, Mario, Street Fighter, Chrono Trigger, etc. and guarentees that there’s a little something for everyone.

http://www.ocremix.org

When it comes to Electronic Arts (the video game publisher/developer best known for their sports franchises such as Madden and NBA Live) it’s not hard to find gamers who don’t think very highly of them. Over the last several years, they have become the big, corporate giant in the eye of video gamers, a money grubbing, heartless entity that values monetary gain over the creativity and innovation. They’ve often been accused of churning out terrible titles with the sole intention of making a quick buck without any real concern for the game’s actual quality, and so when it was announced that EA acquired Bioware studios (a developer renown for their quality and dedication to their fans) and were eyeballing Rockstar (the developers behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise) gamer’s were understandably concerned. To many, any association with EA’s diabolical greed was a terrible thing. Classic titles like Grand Theft Auto and Baldur’s Gate would sacrifice their creativity and stellar production value in favor of making of shoddy sequels that would be guaranteed to sell well, but ultimately be a pale shadow of their once former greatness.

In the past, I’ve been indifferent about EA. It’s true in the past that they have been guilty of milking the proverbial cash cow -a clear example of this would be Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. Instead of attempting to make a true successor to Rare’s masterpiece, Goldeneye, on the Nintendo 64, EA instead gave us a mediocre and uninspired FPS that was obviously attempting to sell itself more through name recognition than quality game play. Simultaneously, however, EA did bring us Army of Two, which despite its flaws, was actually pretty fun. Additionally, they also did provide a publisher for Pandemic for their upcoming Mercenaries 2 after Lucas Arts left them high and dry a few years ago.

However, after playing Battlefield Bad Company for the last several days, I have to admit I’m beginning to think that all the naysayers, all the people who criticize them about caring more about money than the gamers they sell games to, just may be right.

Before I go any further, Battlefield Bad Company is actually a fun game. The single player is surprisingly engaging and the multiplayer is amazing. Overlooking some inherent game play flaws that annoy me (for instance being able to communicate with only your squad of four people instead of all twelve in your team is just plain stupid) the real problem about Battlefield Bad Company lies not so much in the responsibility of the developers (Digital Illusions CE) but the publishers, Electronic Arts.

In short, the game doesn’t work.

Since launch, the forums have been flooded with complaints about some aspect of the game not working the way it should.

The major ones have been…

-The game keeps locking up and freezing
EA’s tech support advice? Get a new disc. However, for many users, this problem continues to persist.

-The audio keeps crashing
Thus far, EA has yet to address this problem.

-The online servers keep crashing, disconnecting, or suffer from massive lag making the game virtually unplayable.
EA’s tech support advice? Turn off your console for twenty minutes and then try again until a permanent solution can be fixed. This problem has been persisting for the last week and EA has done nothing about it thus far.

-People are exploiting glitches and cheating, allowing them to rank up exponentially faster than everyone else, ruining the leaderboards and crippling their team with their complacency.

EA’s reponse so far has been to acknowledge that they’re aware of the problem and that they’ll fix it in an upcoming patch. They have yet to mention whether or not they’re doing anything to rectify the broken leaderboards or do anything to ban cheaters. Instead of taking a hard line against people who are exploiting glitches in the game (the responsibilities of those who maintain and moderate their servers -EA in this case) they’re content to let it run rampant and fix it at their own convenience. This was about a week ago.

-I can’t unlock my pre-order weapons
Perhaps the most defining example of EA’s complete indifference to the desires of the consumer is their completely inane marketing promotions that were designed to encourage gamer’s to sign up for EA’s newsletters, register their games, etc. etc. in order to unlock new weapons. While it’s easy enough to see this is actually a way for EA to gather information on its customers and advertise to them more effectively (which I don’t really have a problem with) the problem is that their campaign backfired on them. Nothing about it works.

One way to unlock one of the five “secret” weapons was to sign up for their newsletter. Unfortunately, half the time EA doesn’t send you an email with the code, and when they do send it to you, the code is bogus and won’t work.

Another way to unlock two of the five weapons was to register your games and check your game status online. However, EA’s website is broken and won’t recognize quite a few gamer’s ID’s, thus making it impossible to unlock their guns. On top of this, despite sending numerous requests for assistance from EA’s tech support, five days later and no one has bothered to address my question. Unsurprisingly, I’m not alone either in my problem or my growing frustration with EA. A poster on EA’s forum tells how he finally was able to find EA’s contact number (which isn’t readily availble on the website) and found that his problem was hardly anything surprising to the clearly frustrated and impatient sounding operator.

The final unlockable weapon is only obtainable by preordering the game. So, if you couldn’t or didn’t want to preorder Bad Company, you’re out of luck. While this may be understandable, the fact that quite a few of these codes don’t even work isn’t. On top of that, retailers like Amazon and Gamestop have no idea what to do about this problem. EA isn’t sending any new codes to them, so they’re forced to make excuses, lie, or tell them to contact EA for answers. Unfortunately, by the sounds of it, EA doesn’t have any answers either.

These weapons should’ve been unlockable by playing the game normally. We should’ve have to jump through hoops, playing EA’s stupid little games in order to get things that we just paid $59.99 for. No other company has ever used such inane tactics before, and it’s probably because it just pisses people off, especially when nothing works the way it’s supposed to anyway.

And you know what’s the worst thing about all this?

EA doesn’t even have the decency to post in their own forums to personally address these issues. Instead, they keep making generic announcements saying “Problem solved!” only to have dozens of posters laugh in their faces and tell them that their full of crap. The problems are still there and as prevalent as ever.

Digital Illusions CE made a good game. EA just managed to screw it all up.

It’s arguable perhaps that games don’t always launch perfectly. Even Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4 has its issues at launch, but the biggest difference was that IW corrected them immediately. From the first day I was able to go online and play seamlessly for days before the first real server issue occurred, and even then it was rectified within twelve hours. EA has known about the server instability (lag and crashes) for months now after these problems surfaced in the beta and demo. The same thing goes with the glitch exploiting cheaters.

This game should’ve never been launched in the state it is currently in -a huge mess. When I spend $60 on a game, I sort of expect to be able to play it. It’s expected for MMORPG launches to run into troubles, but let’s face it, Age of Conan with its numerous servers and hundreds of thousands of players launched smoother and with less problems and complaints than Bad Company did.

Digital Illusions CE made a good game. EA just managed to screw it up.

Good job, EA. Turns out people were right. You really don’t care. And you know what?

I’m never buying another one of your games ever again.