With barely a day away from release, I have decided to unwrap the veils off the launch trailer that was released by Infinity Ward! ‘lo and behold, the modern warfare 2 launch trailer! Its looking so awesome!
Modern Warfare 2 will be released in stores on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009, however, there are some retailers that will be doing midnight launches just hours before the fateful 11/10/09 date. Retailers include best buy, GameStop, Wal-Mart, Target, and more.
One of the most popular features about Mortal Kombat is the ability to pull off a “fatality,” a “babalities,” a “animality” and a “friendship.” One feature that is underrated in MGS2 is the ability to collect dogtags.
Now, the question is for a first person shooter game – How do we embarrass someone else? Every day, that I play COD4, I come across a guy who’s intention is to embarrass me. Or a guy who talk a lot of smack to me. How do we take revenge? By killing him? Several times? As in death streaks?
How about something better? I was reading a thread at COD4Boards and I had an idea. When you kill someone, you should be able to pick up his dogtag!
For example, someone kills you after you’ve checked the room as a routine check. But a minute later, he shot you. You died. He was camping. A lot of people hate campers. You go back and find him, and killed him. What’s next? How about picking up his dogtag! And this dogtag isn’t just some callsign, its a real-live embossed card of your camper’s (or enemy’s) name. Once you’re finished with the match – others can see your dogtags once they hover over your name. As if you’re wearing it with pride.
But you can’t just pick up everyone’s dogtags, you need to have a certain kind of situation to be in with him. For example, if he killed you more than 3 times due to him being a dumb little camper – you take the dogtag. Or if you completed a challenge such as Collateral Damage, and one of the players you shot is a recurring killer of yours – you get the dogtag from him.
Similar to challenges, you can view your collected dogtags – to see or show you’ve killed a recurring player, or a famous player.
So, I had decided that the old design wasn’t serving me any good anymore. I have decided to give the blog a facelift. One that fits my ideals. I’d been looking for a busy, yet easy to load page. So I installed a new skin. I’m still working on fixing some of the things… and it’ll be final.
In other CarlosX360 Network news, CarlosX360 Co. Ltd. has acquired smurof.com and smurof.net as they’ll become the cornerstone of a new project planned. Mostly because of the fact that smurof is essentially Forums spelt backwards. I sat for a few minutes and thought “Why hasn’t anyone taken advantage of this name?”
Even if its spelt backwards, why not? You can basically do anything with it. So, with this in mind, I have decided to keep the smurof.net domain since it was given away to me, and looked at the .com extention. First thing out of my mouth: “Are you kidding me?” Went and bought it the next hour.
I’ve been playing MySpace and Facebook game apps for quite a while now. And I love ’em. I’m addicted to them.
These game apps are now more accepted by MySpace, and Facebook users. To them, its their pastime. But these apps borrow heavily from video games. For example, Mobsters, which is said to be MySpace’s #1 game – borrows a lot from crime syndicate games such as Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row just to name a few. FarmVille is currently growing by leaps and bounds – 1 million fans. It borrows heavily from Harvest Moon, but the bigger scope is that the game is heavily targeted at the 30 – 40 year class. I see a lot of people using FarmVille that has never touched a game console.
I have been asking myself; why are these apps far more accepted than your typical video game? I mean, some games on the market have some sort of Experience Points system in place. For example, COD4 is a first person shooter, yet it has some sort of ranking system that uses Experience Points to gain a new rank – most of these myspace and facebook users know them as “XP” which is a widely accepted acronym for Experience Points.
Another example that strikes at me, is Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, San Andreas, and GTA4. The Grand Theft Auto series has an enormous world in which you can build your character from the first minute you play GTA, you start as a small-time thug, and you work your way up to the big-time. And part of the process is gaining XP for your character, and XP for your characters’ traits – longer running distance, higher attack and defense points, stronger stamina, and more. The character development also includes completing missions to gain XP. The reputation system helps increase your XP. But! In a bigger scheme of things is that these games are derived from RPG’s, also commonly known as Role Playing Games.
Not everyone understands RPG’s as a whole. See, that’s my point here. If Mobsters, Fashion Wars, FarmVille, Mafia Wars are widely accepted by myspace, facebook users, then we can expect game companies to come out of the woodwork and start creating similar games. They also can create more RPG’s, and revive the genre from its ashes.
Square Enix is already publishing Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games abroad, across the world already, but the thing is, RPG’s aren’t accepted here in united states – or other english speaking countries. The problem with RPG’s of the past is that companies put too much stuff into the screen to make the games more understandable. I think RPG companies need to simplify RPG’s to the point where these games are more understandable to the casual gamer.
The other thing they need to do is, move along the flow of gameplay to a point where players can see the action but also know what they hit, how much they hit, and how much they gained. Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Vesperia are perfect examples of fast-paced RPG gameplay. Simple, and easy, not too hard until the later levels.
Final Fantasy XIII which is Square Enix’s new RPG, instead of using anime-like character designs for gameplay, they use CG-like graphics – which is what most of today’s market wants – awesome, detailed characters and worlds. It uses some turn-based gameplay elements, yet, it moves at a faster pace than its predecessors.
What I also think Square Enix needs to do, is to create game apps for myspace and facebook using the Final Fantasy universe, or the Dragon Quest universe – to gain consumer awareness, and acceptance for RPG’s in general. I think that current RPG companies need to band together and start creating game apps for myspace and faceook to gain acceptance for RPG’s in general, to drive sales for games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tales of Vesperia, and other future RPG’s.
It doesn’t matter how complicated you make these apps, just use the current formula to make similar demographics as mobsters, mafia wars, farmVille, and other big game apps on the market.
My family never understood why I love Role Playing Games, at all, until these game apps hit social networks. Welcome to our world!
Editor’s Note: This article was written by CarlosX360 (Carlos Morales) and is a copyright of CarlosX360 Co. Ltd.
It looks like the story has progressed so much that everything seems to have evolved. Even there are some new gameplay mechanics during single player, jumping on a marine truck and using a turret!? SIGN ME UP!
I can’t wait for November. Why does it have to be so faar away! 🙁
Change is upon us; the economic wave has caused businesses to sell their assets to a better suited company to take helm of their beloved franchises, or brands. But change for many of the major companies started when there was a change in the way the market behaved to these companies. Starting with Disney and its brands. Disney still has the brand “stronghold” but doesn’t have the mature market. So, in order to facilitate this, they collaborated with a company known to gamers as “Square.” Square is the markers of big role-playing games such as Valkyrie Profile, Final Fantasy, Xenogears, just to name a few. Square and Disney collaborated to create a cross-over game that’s quite notorious in gaming right now starting with Street Fighter vs Marvel Super Heroes, and Marvel Vs Capcom 1 & 2. That game happens to be Kingdom Hearts – a crossover between the Square universe and the Disney universe. However, the Disney universe is much more richer than Square, so they’ve only used the Final Fantasy universe to reach hardcore gamers, and other like-minded role-playing fans. What started as a “heartless” invasion of the Disney world and other worlds turned into a two-worlds battle for control of the universe, merely by a special key. See, each world has a keyhole, and you, as player are to steal it. But there’s only one big keyhole, the one that most of the game’s characters are after; Sora’s keyblade. He was chosen to take control of this keyblade, while unknown why, it possesses special “perks” to open each keyhole, including the source of all keyholes. After Kingdom Hearts 2, no one’s been able to find that special door to lock every single “heartless” away from the worlds. At least, not yet.
Why am I starting with a backstory? Well, recently, there’s been big merges and acquisitions in the gaming and comic book industries – in where both worlds become entwined. Companies are paying attention to what Square, Disney, and Capcom, Marvel are doing. This includes Midway, the makers of Mortal Kombat, Rampage, co-developers of Killer Instinct, Gauntlet, and other classic arcade icons. Midway went and collaborated with DC comics to bring Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe; while many considered it to be a very odd union. It was Midway’s best selling game in 5 years after they tried to reboot, and re-brand Mortal Kombat into the 3rd Dimension.
I’ve been watching each industry closely, with the television industry in the equation. I’m seeing a big trend of companies merging universes to sell units and copies of games, movies, and comics. The comic business are seeing a decline – mostly because right now, the internet is changing the way we deliver news, reviews, previews, latest breaking news, comics, and even video delivery.
EGM recently closed its operations – the existing one, in which the legacy of the magazine go waaay back to the early 1970’s when video games started to evolve into an entertainment venue. This decline of EGM was the fault of the company, the economic situation at the time of closing was better than it is at the time of this writing. It got to a breaking point because everyone wants to use the internet for their everyday lives stuff. Nobody’s buying magazines anymore, they’re reading them from the internet.
Comics. People still buy them because they love art. I love art. Anyone that knows me, know this. I love to draw. I love to imagine things that may seem “impossible” which is part of the reason why the video game industry is perfect for me – the video game industry gets away with having fantasy settings that is no longer appreciated by the movies industry. But see? Long time ago, the movie industry shifted because video games became so mainstream its not even funny. Most if not all comic book companies flock to video game industry – from Marvel to DC comics, from X-men to Spiderman, to the recent “The Darkness” release on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.
Let me put it this way, the reason why the “CD player” market changed, is because of Apple’s Ipod series, the general cell phone industry has gone through huge changes in the way they deliver content – Why? Apple’s iphone. Webmasters have seen a spike of change through multiple Computer Operating Systems. Ever heard of Linux? Ever hear of the new Mac OSX’es? Oh, I might as well throw the upcoming Windows 7 software coming this month. Lets not mention the fact that PS3 is a online-enabled console that “Only Does Everything!” That includes browsing the internet. The internet has shifted many industries that not your typical movie goer knows, not your typical video gamer knows, not your typical comic book reader knows.
Today, I’m talking about the change that I have noticed for a while now, starting with Kingdom Hearts, continued to Midway’s Mortal Kombat vs DC universe. What I am about to talk about is solidifying what I knew for a while now. The cartoon industry is going to undergo a huge change. Disney is going to lead that change.
Whatever you know about the Disney characters. Do me a favor and throw them out of the window, because the market is changing, and Disney is noticing. They’re acting on how the market is behaving right now. I’ll tell you why.
Whatever you see on TV is now taken over by sitcoms, cops and robbers shows, mature and violent shows, soap operas, war on terror, war in the future, teenage shows – I’ll talk about this later. Anyway, I have noticed that Nickeloden, FOX (on weekends only), WB, Cartoon Network, and Disney are the ONLY sheriffs in town delivering teenage shows, and are the only remaining networks that are going to deliver cartoon shows on national television. WWE, CSI, Cops, are among the longest running televisions shows on TV right now. They’re for good reasons, people are now tired of watching cartoons as kids, and by the time they’re teenagers, they don’t want to associate themselves with cartoons. Disney noticed this, and they want to expand to this demographic. They want to keep their iconic francises, and brands – but also want to attract the teenagers who’d just stopped watching these cartoons.
Gone are the days where kids can just waltz on home and watch their favorite cartoons on TV. Due to fact today’s teenagers are adapting with change faster than ever before.
Fast forward to the present day: Midway has been purchased by Warner Bros. Marvel is pending a buyout by the Disney Company.
What’s going on here? Why is everyone from one industry to the other buying another industry’s property?
Obviously, we’re going to see a huge change in brands. With the recent leaks by GamaSutra has recently been making rounds in the game industry; mostly because of the fact that it mentions that Disney wants to go head to head with Nintendo’s Mario mascot.
Mario’s a legacy right now; selling more than 50 million copies of more than 20 different Mario video games. And this fall, Nintendo is set to release New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The new Mario game is an extention of Nintendo DS’ New Super Mario Bros. DS – both games are actually remakes of older Mario games, Super Mario Bros. DS is actually a brand new 2D game set in the Super Mario Bros’ universe, while Super Mario Bros. Wii is a brand new game taking place in the Super Mario Bros. 2 universe.
This cover is a cover of GameInformer, which will hit news stands nationwide in November:
Could this continue the trend they’ve started with Kingdom Hearts by creating a new, yet familiar world? The concept art hints that the game is geared towards a gritty cartoon game.
My point is, Disney is onto something bigger than a brand change. Bigger than a reboot. I love what I see in those concept art, they’re familiar, yet so… gritty, and different. Could this also herald a brand new villian? Could this mean a new arch rival? A new storyline? New characters and friends? Could this even mean the future of Mickey Mouse and the hundreds of Disney characters that is in Disney’s portfolio?
I don’t think this is going to be just a Mickey game. No. I see something different in the concept art. So, fans of Disney or any of disney’s characters will have to throw everything they know about Disney straight out of the door. Because a big change is comng. And I like it.
Kingdom Hearts was the taste of things to come, and I like what Disney is doing right now, I just find the Marvel acquisition to be odd, is all.
Until next time. See you later, boys and girls.
Editor’s Note: This article was written by CarlosX360 (Carlos Morales) and is a copyright of CarlosX360 Co. Ltd.
So, today, I’m excited not just because I’ve gotten to 9th prestige, 75k kills. But I have racked up enough challenges to prove myself. And to top it off…pulling off a hard, but unexpected lineup of a two players, creating a Collateral Damage with my M40A3.
How’d I pull it off? I was playing on Bog, and some people were being @$$es as usual. Calling the best players “f@g” or “f@gs” because they can’t put up with being shot by a good player. So, I’m getting annoyed by these guys talking smack because they killed me – oh BIG WOOP! I rise above it. I shot a few with my Silenced AK47. Then this guy pissed me off with a comment that threw me off “haha! Carlos I got you!” like a kid. Seriously dude? Okay, I get out my M40A3 and laid prone on the other side of the map where he keeps “sneaking around” in. I pointed my gun at the door, the entrance from kitchen to the alleyway where all the trash containers and fire is enclosed inside the fence – ok so I lay prone there. I quick scoped one player, but I did it again – only this time, Collateral Damage. Yeah baby!
The guy reacted obviously! Hehehe.
And I’m playing with a BROKEN controller! Yeah haters. Broken.
Video game developer and publisher Tecmo announced today the release of NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA 2 on PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system. The latest installment in the critically acclaimed series, NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA 2, releases in North America today, followed by Japan and Europe on October 2nd, 2009.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2:
NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA 2’s Collector’s Edition will be available exclusively from GameStop in North America, and includes the Official Soundtrack with over 30 tracks, and an 80-page book featuring:
* A 30-page Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 prologue comic written and designed by Team NINJA. The comic is a printed version of the in-game digital comic.
* Mini-Strategy Guide: A starter guide covering Ryu, Ayane, Momiji, and Rachel’s weapons, ninpos, Story Mode basics, Team Missions and more
* Art Gallery: A peek at various character concept artwork
* Commentary from Team NINJA producer Yosuke Hayashi and the team’s lead artists
In addition, consumers who pre-ordered NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA 2 at GameStop will receive an exclusive downloadable costume available through the PlayStation Network.
Story:
As super ninja Ryu Hayabusa, you roam the world and hunt down the Demon Statue that was stolen by the Black Spider Ninja Clan to prevent the resurrection of the evil Archfiend. From Tokyo to New York, follow Ryu as he encounters vicious enemies and acquires an extensive assortment of ninja weaponry along the way.
Game Features:
* New Playable Characters: Ninja Gaiden’s Rachel, Ayane from the Dead or Alive series and Momiji from Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword appear as sexy new playable characters
* Team Missions mode (Co-op): Two players can engage in online co-op play with voice chat in more than 30 different missions. View and record your play through “Ninja Cinema” and share your Cinema and Mission results via PlayStation Network
* Chapter Challenge mode: Master your favorite chapter and compete against others for the top Karma points
* Ninja Record: View your complete stats for every mode played, number of enemies defeated, drops and throws, combos, rescues, character usage rate and more
* Rewards: Over 50 trophies to earn throughout the game and a dozen unlockable costumes. Weapons acquired can be leveled up to strengthen their power and gain new battle techniques.
* Visual Diversity: Over 30 unique characters, 17 stages with a variety of environments, and a storyline which unfolds in 70 impressive cut-scenes
* Variable AI: Contributing to the increased difficulty level, the gameplay differs each time you appear in a level as enemies engage in a variety of different actions as they assess the current situation
* Gameplay Innovation: A finishing blow system can be used in battle to quickly defeat an enemy in one dynamic action
More information on the title is available at the Official Ninja Gaiden website.
NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA 2 is rated “M” (Mature) by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) and will carry a suggested retail price of US $59.99 (Collector’s Edition US $69.99).
Source: Tecmo Press Release.
I think this is from the same press event, but I can’t be too sure. The video title is a language I’m not familiar with.
This video has a sniper rifle, and it has the heart-sensor on it. He rescued someone, so “Rescuer” is unlocked! And “One Shot Kill” is shown after you shoot one bullet and he dies. I’m not sure what he’s doing at 2:55, I’m assuming he’s readying a part of a weapon or marking the spawn point? Few minutes later, you can see he made a headshot, and gets the accolade. You get points for headshots now! You can make a “Longshot” now and you get points for that, also. Akimbo’s definitely not a perk, you can pick them up. And each akimbo weapon has its own weapon – in this case, you can wield two PP-2000.
And finally, Riot Shield gameplay!
Editor’s Note: This was written by CarlosX360 (Carlos Morales) and is a copyright of CarlosX360 Co. Ltd.
Afghan Gameplay:
The famous “Multi-Kill” callout makes its way into Modern Warfare 2. When you kill more than three enemies with a single bullet or a single missile (in this case the predator missile) you get multi-kill. Also notice that some kills has an animation not found in the original Modern Warfare. Money flying out of players?
In this video, there’s another famous callout – “Double-Kill” you need to kill two enemies with a single bullet or missile. The other thing that stood out is “Share Package” in which your teammate saved your care package from the enemy.
Highrise Gameplay:
Nothing to see here, so go ahead and mosey along now, if you’ve seen the video.
The only thing new in here is that the box for planting the bomb is very different from that of the original Modern Warfare.
That’ll be all for today from Gametrailers! If you want to see the rest of the videos – head on over here.
Editor’s Note: This was written by CarlosX360 (Carlos Morales) and is a copyright of CarlosX360 Co. Ltd.