In the past couple years we saw Soul Calibur IV, MKvsDC, Street Fighter 4, Guilty Gear XX and soon we’re to see a new King of Fighters and Tekken 6. Arc System Works, creators of Guity Gear, seem to be taking the steps along other fighters to bring in a cinematic experience to the forefront with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Technological limitations have prevented former fighters from really emulating that extreme anime experience, but current generation games are breaking that barrier.
Soul Calibur brought in Critical Finishers which were elaborate effects-heavy beat downs, Street Fighter now has Ultra Combo Finishes that swing the camera around for some dramatic demoralization. BlazBlue has integrated hi-def anime quality “Astral Finishes” that look to be some furious over-the-top insanity. Expect to see BlazBlue hit North America later this year.
Perfectly blending blood, dismemberment, mythological beasts, tight gameplay, harems, and goddesses that wear sheer handkerchiefs for shirts, the God of War series has always brought the best of what good games should be. Now Kratos comes fireslashing his way to HD glory after 2 mindblowing appearances on the PS2. The series has always brought the hack and slash combat system to an artform, but beyond the awesomely gratuitous sex and violence has always come great level design. Boss battles in the first 2 iterations created an epic scope that still put most current gen games to shame.
Possibly to become the best game to come out ever, God of War 3 comes hacking its way exclusively to the PS3 towards the end of this year.
Click the jump for more images of glorious badassery. (more…)
So EA made this demo before the Ricky Hatton/Manny Pacquiao fight to promote Fight Night Round 4 coming out this summer. Smart marketing tying in this fight considering YouTube alone is going to be serving some major exposure for people looking for the vegas brawl. The boxers look insanely realistic and the animation looks to be the best the series has had to offer. Only thing they didnt get right is that they didn’t predict that Hatton was going get annihilated in the 2nd round and have his brain rattled by a massive left hook from the Filipino madman. This match was the follow up fight after Manny Pacquiao pummeled The Golden Boy, Oscar de la Hoya into retirement.
It’s easy to join the hate train when it comes to Saw. Yes they come out with one every year, but I’ll watch anything Charlie Clouser does the score to. And when it comes to the hatred of Saw, does anyone that dislike the movies actually keep watching them? You either like to watch people get ripped part or not.
At any rate, if you had no idea the movies existed and saw this as a stand alone game, you might actually be intrigued. There’s all this Resident Evil 5 hype that’s more of an action game than anything. The Saw game seems to take the genre back to roots in at least the aspect of creating an atmosphere or sense of tension like early RE, Clock Tower and Silent Hill. I could be wrong, but to hastily smash these developers for what might have potential is irrational when compared to some of the sins esteemed publishers commit, not to mention are forgiven for.
If you’ve been keeping up with Batman: Arkham Asylum then you’re undoubtedly excited about its release like I am. Ever since I watched the first trailer, hearing Kevin Conroy and Mark Hammill’s voices return I’ve been eagerly anticipating the game’s release. There’s been a couple of major updates to occur the past couple of days; a trailer and some bad news.
Are you a good news first kind of person?…
Hopefully you are because there’s a brand spanking new trailer to show off. This shows off a slew of combat moves that Batman will pull off in-game. I’ve never seen Batman as epically brutal as he does in this trailer, and that’s a good thing. The criminally insane asylumites wont know what hit em’. Enjoy.
Unfortunately there’s bad news to report as well. It’s still a rumor, but it’s one that has merit behind it as well. Game Informer is reporting that a credible source has claimed that Batman: Arkham Asylum will be pushed back to Q4 of this year. Not surprisingly, Eidos and Warner Bros. Interactive had no comment about the rumor.
Milla Jovovich Resident Evil movies provided zombie slaughter faire and DOA even brought some eye candy and action to the table. Hitman, Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat and Silent Hill took decent stabs at the genre. In the CG realm Final Fantasy: Advent Children and Resident Evil: Degeneration really brought the quality control up a notch. In this day and age there a some video game stories that haven’t been adapted and if done right, could be epic in cinematic and box office proportions.
With Tekken, Metal Gear, Tron 2 and Prince of Persia coming to a theater near you, it’s no surprise that video game movies are going to stick around. These stories have the potential to be great and Hollywood is fast learning comics and video games are material worth taking seriously. But if they knock those out of the park, what next? Since this is a PS3 site let’s keep the list to a least titles that have appeared on a Sony system. And we’ll stick to original IPs, games not based on movies naturally, and envision what kind of imagery might be truly epic on screen.
5. NINJA GAIDEN
There aren’t many high budget films about ninja that come to mind. When you consider how many high production films actually use wirework and martial arts it becomes an even more surprising fact. Take Ryu Hayabusa here and follow his mystical journey accompanied by adversaries’ heads popping off in an ultra violent manner, I think you may have a winner on your hands. Highly stylized cinematography may even allow a buxom Rachel with her impossibly huge and impossibly heavy hammer (yes, hammer) swinging around popping enemies into the air. Just imagine everything in the Matrix except it’s like a ninja fantasy world.
4. DEVIL MAY CRY
DMC is a perfect candidate for a screen adaptation because you have a cooler than ice hero private eye that has a hotter than hell partner in crime, Trish. Capcom, known for their outrageous character designs have brought us Dante: a flaming sword, twin pistol-wielding demon hunter that can morph into a demon himself. Tell me that that’s not a righteous special effects extravaganza waiting to happen.
3. FALLOUT
Do this post-apocalyptic story that’s part Half-Life and part Resident Evil. Go through this ruined landscape facing hordes of mutants and give the camera plenty of slow-mo opportunities to watch the armaments fly into their torsos and have them explode into a wondrous gelatinous blood bomb. A definite R rating. Let’s steer clear from Dwayne Johnson’s Doom, and think more Clive Owen’s Children of Men in terms of depth …except with mutants.
2. SOUL CALIBUR (direct-to-video cg animation)
Even though we have a live action Tekken feature coming up, I think a cg film would accommodate the Soul series best as possible. It doesn’t take too much imagination to get the visual feel of it since most Soul Calibur games have had gorgeous CG in their games already. Just take that quality animation and make it a full length feature about Siegfried’s quest for the Soul Edge and how it turns him into Nightmare and have him face the robust cast of characters the series has garnered throughout the years. Here are some stills of the outrageous Ivy that could be easily implemented.
1. GOD OF WAR
There was heavy internet buzz awhile back that Brett Ratner was going to try to ruin a God of War film. Thank every god in the pantheon that that was aborted or was simply a cruel joke taken way too far. A movie starring Kratos needs to be a slaughterfest somewhere in between 300 and Clash of the Titans. Stylized blood effects and mythological beasts with the scale of Lord of the Rings. Testosterone heavy with harems and goddesses wearing far too little just as the game does to appeal to anyone with heavy affinity to male juvenile subject matter.
A rare occasion that a cartoon character becomes so popular that they become canon in the actual comics. But loved far and wide for her maniacal tendencies, Harley Quinn was introduced in Batman the Animated Series 15 or so odd years ago. Her performance has paid off because she continues her candy lane of murder and mayhem in Batman books today. And now, she appears in Batman: Arkham Asylum with a bit of a Dark Knight makeover. Guess lil ol’ Harl has been doing a bit of shopping.
As the world’s preeminent detective, Batman has a lousy track record when it comes to video games. But I’ve been on board with this ever since I’d heard Kevin Conroy and Mark Hammil’s voices in the original teaser.
Press releases are generally boring, full of fluff and not worth the time to read. Luckily, we have quirky corporate presidents that can make them worthwhile. In Emmanuel Olivier’s press release he accuses Sony of charging exorbinant royalty fees and censoring Microïds’ games for NA release.
I expect we’ll see a rebuttal from Sony in the near future.
Paris, April 17, 2009 - Following the countless messages and questions from fans which followed our announcement on April 1st regarding the launch of Syberia 3, Emmanuel Olivier, President of Microïds, gives more details on that announcement.
“Syberia 3 is not an April Fool’s joke. The game is highly expected by the community of fans of adventure games and fans of Kate Walker and it will be launched, it is one of our most strategic projects at Microïds and we have been anticipating it for a long time.
It will be released on PC for sure, however, on PS3, this could actually turn into an April Fool’s joke because SONY is the only decision-maker on this point, as strange as it may seem to some people.
Benoît Sokal, the author of Syberia and Syberia 2, has mentioned several times in the press that he would only participate in a sequel to his masterpiece if he had enough financial means to design and develop an exceptional title. Today Microïds is ready to invest in this ambitious production. But everyone knows that to amortize the development costs of a major video game with that level of quality, it is essential to develop it for multiple platforms, PC and consoles.
However Sony Computer Entertainment has already censured Microïds in 2003 by denying that Syberia was released on PS2 in the United States though it had previously been released in Europe on that console. The same refusal happened for a dozen other Microïds titles for the U.S.
Beyond this censorship of the authors and their producers who believe in their creations and who take the financial risks when building up productions for the console without knowing whether they will be approved or denied by SONY in the last minute, the exorbitant royalties demanded by SONY to manufacture the games on its consoles seriously hamper the financing ability of independent producers. Microïds has paid more than 15 million Euros of royalties to SONY for its entire catalog, which represents 55% of the Microïds turnover for this platform. April Fools? Well no! It is unfortunately the “rule of the game” imposed by SONY.
The revenue shortfalls due to the PS2 games we were not able to sell in the United States, a highly significant territory, coupled with the excessive royalties paid to SONY for the European territories, have so far prevented Microïds from having the ability to reinvest in an ambitious sequel to the Syberia series.
So today we launch an SOS to all fans of the Syberia series: let us rally to support the independent creation and convince Sony to change its rules. Send all your messages of support to: supporToSyberia3PS3@microids.com
SYBERIA 3 on PS3, an April Fool’s? It’s up to SONY!”
I have to confess that I had no prior knowledge of Solomon Grundy before having a view of these screens. I might not know who he was, but I can’t wait to take him down in DC Universe Online. It’s shaping up to be a beautiful game. It’s going to be a PC, PS3 release which is quite an odd combo. Considering the stranglehold Microsoft has on ‘Windows Live’.
For the past few months, gamers have been wildly anticipating the release of FFVII: Advent Children Complete on Blu-Ray. Sure the movie was good, but most are waiting to get their hands on the Final Fantasy XIII demo. That’s what I’m excited for anyway.
For those actually anticipating the release of the blu-ray movie, you should be glad to know that the boxart has been announced (or leaked) and is shown below…
