According to Blizzard’s execuitve vice president of game design Rob Pardo, Diablo III, one of Blizzard’s sequels filed in the “will never see the light of day” folder, will feature a DRM that will require players to be constantly connected to the internet. Most Battle.net games just require an authentication process just when you log into Battle.net to play your game, such as Starcraft II or World of Warcraft. Pardo continues by saying this requirement is due to the implementation of numerous new Battle.net and Auction House features.

Those features include the following:
* A persistent friends list.
* Cross-game chat via the RealID system.
* Persistent characters that are stored server-side (which eliminates the need to play online once every 90 days, as well as remove any item duplication cheats).
* Persistent party system.
* Player-versus-player and public game matchmaking.
* Dynamic drop-in/out for co-op
* Larger item stash that gets shared among all of your characters (at the moment, to 10)
* The auction house: which allows players to sell loot for money
* The Achievement system and detailed stat-tracking, both of which feed into the final point:
* The Banner system: a visual way to display your skills that take into account earn achievements, the number of PVP victories etc. Banners can be clicked to teleport to other players.

Blizzard has already confirmed that Diablo 3 will be playable at GamesCom in Cologne, which takes place mid-August. However, an actual date of its release has yet to be announced.

[source]

• Custom Batman statue produced by Kotobukiya
• Collectible art book
• Early access to the Iceberg Lounge Challenge Map and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns skin
• Batman: Arkham City album from WaterTower Music including original songs by hit artists, available via digital redemption
• Bonus DC Universe animated original movie, Batman: Gotham Knight

Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to the 2009 epic Batman: Arkham Asylum. Set one year after the events of Arkham Asylum, Batman finds himself in the slums of Gotham City facing off against many of his foes such as the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Two Face. Both the regular and collectors editions will be available on October 18th.

[Source: Official Website]

Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts have decided to shut down the service on December 15. This will include both the video game as well as the trading card game. Sony also has discontinued the purchase of any tweleve, six, and three month subscriptions and will also provide partial refunds to any subscription that extends beyond October 15.

Active members of Star Wars Galaxies by September 15 will be given the last three months free as they will be involved in a “galaxy-ending event planned for the last week of live service in December.”

While it’s sad to see Galaxies end its eight year run, many are anticipating the official announcement of The Old Republic‘s release date to come around Galaxies departure.

[via EUCantina.net]

Publisher:

It’s January 1947, and Cole Phelps, the protagonist of L.A. Noire, has been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps following World War II, and has moved to California to join the Los Angeles Police Department. Working as a beat cop, he finds out that L.A. isn’t as luxurious as Hollywood portrays. Wanting to do what is right and not just what is expected of him, Phelps continues to impress his superiors, including the Captain of the Homicide Department who gives him a chance of interrogating a suspect Phelps arrested earlier. Impressing the Captain, he’s promoted as a detective and gets his chance to clean up the City of Angels. And just in time, too.

L.A. Noire is reminiscent of the old adventure games. It’s all about using your brain, looking and examining clues, questioning suspects and witnesses, and slowly putting together the outcome of the story. It’s still a sandbox game in which you can drive around L.A. and solve random crimes as well as your main case, but it’s not Grand Theft Auto. The game’s setting can best be described as “1947 for Dummies.” Clothing, cars, hair styles, music, slang… everything dates back to post World War II. The best touch, though, was the constant reminders of the Black Dahlia: the January 1947 unsolved murder case of Elizabeth Short, whose body was found naked and mutilated in Leimert Park in Los Angeles.

Speaking of the Black Dahlia, L.A. Noire is not a game for children. There’s a reason why it’s rated M. Do not buy this game for your children. Get to the first couple true murder cases and you’ll know why.

This PSA has been brought to you by Level Up News. Now back to our regularly scheduled review…

One of the prominent features of L.A. Noire is a process they call MotionScan. Every character in the game has an actor that not only voiced said character, but entered a rig consisting of thirty-two high-definition cameras completely surrounding the actor and capturing their head and facial movements while voicing their lines. Over 400 actors performed for L.A. Noire whether they were a main character, had a bit part in one of the cases, or even one of the random citizens walking on the streets of L.A. But the MotionScan isn’t just used during cutscenes and interrogation scenes. Even while walking around with your partner, if they strike a conversation it’s still used.

This can't possibly be good...

This technology is crucial to a game like L.A. Noire since you’ll be questioning suspects and witnesses and will have to judge whether they’re telling the truth, outright lying, or you doubt them but lack the evidence to prove they’re lying. It plays out like Capcom’s Phoenix Wright series. Players will have to pay attention to the suspect’s facial movements while they respond to Phelps’ questions and while you’re deciding what response to give. If you forget what suspects have said, the game keeps a log of everything, almost like a screenplay.

The only problem with this is the vagueness between “Doubt” and “Lie.” The game grades you on selecting the right responses during questioning, so if you choose wrong you’re unable to try again unlike in other dialogue-choice games. In one case, there was a pair of self-repaired glasses in the crime scene. Later when I asked the suspect’s wife about her husband’s glasses, she said that he had left the house wearing his new glasses, not the old broken ones. Knowing this wasn’t true I selected “Lie.” What I meant to do was to say that she was lying about having a new pair of glasses seeing as the ones we found were broken, but what Phelps did was accuse her of being the murder and being with her husband when she killed him. Seriously? The only saving grace is that whatever Phelps accuses of lying, you have to prove. If you don’t have the proof, you can just hit the back button and Phelps responds with a simple “I’m sorry” and the whole thing forgotten about. Choose “Doubt” and “Lie” wisely: if you anger your suspect or witness, they will stop talking and your investigation just became harder.

Cases can be solved multiple ways, and sometimes all the clues presented at a crime scene aren’t the only clues you can find, and will steer the case in a different direction. If you also happen to fail getting a suspect to spill secrets, the game can give you a different path to follow. So take your time and take the game seriously. Some of these cases you can’t solve on the fly.

Here's the crime scene. Figure out what happened!

L.A. Noire isn’t just Detective Interviews 101. There’s suspect tailing involved where, like the cops of Law & Order, Phelps and his partner can tail a suspect through the streets of L.A. There’s also foot-chasing, building-hopping, and shoot-outs. And if you fail at any of these, the game will let you know. Suck at car tailing? Up will come the Fail Screen asking “Do you want to skip this part?” The suspect your chasing grabs a hostage and shoots her? Guess what, you get to start the foot chase allllllll over again.

The game does mix up the standard detective scenarios with crime reports. These are short, independent and enclosed cases that can have players either engage in brawling’s, shootings, or hostage rescues (which these can sometimes appear during your main case as well). They’re also a nice way of gaining experience points, which can also be gained during the regular cases, to unlock new outfits–which either are for show or can help Phelps’ stats like improved aiming or obtaining an Intuition Point. These points, which you can only store up to five at a time, can reveal all the clues in an area if you’re having trouble finding one, or can cross out a wrong answer when questioning a witness. In the case that a witness is indeed lying, it will also cross out most if not all of the wrong answers.

At the end of every case, the game rates your ability to respond correctly to testimonies and finding clues as well as if you damaged your car, the city properties, or any civilians along the way. If you didn’t get something right, the game will give you a hint of what you can do should you ever want to repeat the mission. There are twenty-one cases in total, not counting any downloadable content, and forty various crimes to solve throughout the city, so you won’t have to worry about beating this game in a couple hours.

L.A. Noire is a different spin on point-and-click action-adventure games. It’s a game that challenges your intellect and forces you see the big picture even before Phelps figures it out. With several more downloadable cases planned, and some that are already available from pre-orders, we can’t wait to see what Team Bondi and Rockstar have in store for us in the future and in any sequels should they choose to do so. It’s fun, it’s educational, it forces you to think. Fans of murder mysteries need to play L.A. Noire.

Publisher:

Here’s Brink‘s story in a nutshell: Set in the near future, the completion of a man-made, floating continent called the Ark had the world celebrating. But that celebration was cut short as the Earth’s waters slowly rose. Tens of thousands of refugees began settling in, and it quickly became apparent the Ark could not sustain these numbers. It’s been twenty-five years, and with the Ark’s renewable resources fading, the island has been thrown into chaos. Not only are the high-tech machines failing, but a civilian resistance has formed to take over the Ark and use the last remaining power to search for any other human life. They just have to get through the Security forces first.

Brink is a first person, class-based, action shooter that sets itself around other class-based shooters like Battlefield or Team Fortress. But what makes Brink stand out is that it places more of an emphasis on completing objectives than just simply attacking the other team and see who gains the most points. In a “Beat the Clock” gameplay, objectives can vary from “Blow up this Door” to “Escort this Person to Extraction,” while the opposing side has the exact opposite objectives. While you do get to shoot the other team, mission objectives give a real sense of teamwork and breaks the monotony of combat. And if you forget what your mission objective is, don’t worry! Instead of navigating a pause menu to look at your objectives, Splash Damage maps a button on your controller to pull up a selection wheel that points you in the direction of said objective.

What in-game combat looks like

There are four character classes to play in Brink: Soldier, Medic, Engineer, and Operative. Just like every other class combat game, Soldiers hand out ammo and can set up explosive charges, Medics heal and revive characters, Engineers build turrets and can disable bombs and mines, and Operatives can hack databases and disguise themselves as an enemy player. Brink also introduces an experience system that will unlock further abilities for each class that players can choose from and equip. Players are rewarded experience points for completing objectives, helping out an ally, or just simply hitting an enemy. It should also be noted that characters can be fully customized. There has been a lot of negative debate about this, but customizing your character makes you stand out, especially when playing with friends in competitive/cooperative multiplayer. A green mohawk or bright orange vest makes you stand out to other players so at-a-glance they know it’s you and not an enemy.

Customize your character anyway you want!

Brink also introduces an interesting feature called SMART: Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. While holding your sprint button, you can easily perform parkour-style feats,such as sliding into cover, climbing up walls, or running along a wall to get to the next platform. While easy and great, sometimes the map is just too cluttered to use this style, or can just be confusing on where to go to next that it tries to force players to use this system. Other times you’re indoors without any clutter, which makes the SMART system just not seem that important.

Brink’s campaign, though short, can be played off line or online with seven other players against the computer. Slight problem: the maps and objectives are exactly the same in 8-on-8 as they are in the single player. So if you know the map, then you know the objectives; they don’t change.

As the player levels up and gains new abilities, the computer will match the player’s level and abilities, which will always make the game a challenge. The problem with this is if you’re soloing, or not with a full team of friends, your friendly NPCs don’t have the same intelligence as the enemy NPCs. It’s almost as if the enemy AI is working on his Master’s Degree while your friendly AI sits in the corner eating paste. Teamwork is crucial in Brink, but when your friendly AI starts shooting walls and walking into crates, completing objectives can be frustrating.

Then again, if you’re playing with a full team of friends, the enemy AI is simply too difficult. No matter how stealthy you try to be, the enemy AI will always know exactly where you are. If you try to take up a sniper position, they’ll snipe you first with their shotguns. It’s not impossible to beat the computer, but it sure seems that way at times.

There also an issue with verbally communicating with other team members. Brink follows Battlefield’s School of Communication: you can only voice chat with your squadmates. But if you happen to be a lone wolf on a team, while the other team has, say, five friends, you won’t be able to talk with them. This works for Battlefield, considering there’s massive groups of people all battling each other at once. But in a game with only sixteen players total, being segregated from other players isn’t fun nor helpful.

Another problem are the respawn zones aren’t accurately noted nor can you choose to respawn at command posts. One objective you have throughout the campaign is to take over command posts that can either boost your health or give you an extra gadget slot. But they don’t actually act as a respawn zone. If your team makes it to the end of the map, try not to die; you won’t respawn anywhere there them.

All negativity aside, Brink is a great first person, class-based, action shooter. It has the potential to grow and rank itself in the Top 20 games of this year. They just have a couple kinks to iron out and level out the AI to be fair on both sides of the battlefield. If you’re into team-based shooters like Battlefield and Team Fortress 2, look past the negativity and give Brink a chance.

During their press conference, Microsoft showed off Halo 4, Gears of War 3, and even a full ten minute presentation of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Sony showed off 3D games, new PlayStation Move titles, and a new HD handheld, PlayStation Vita. After these two great press conferences, Nintendo had to come out with something big.

No pressure, Nintendo.

Maybe it didn’t start off that big. A full orchestra sat below the stage and started playing a montage of Legend of Zelda music as the main screen showed video clips of the various Legend of Zelda games, all the way to the new Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, all in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the series. Shigeru Miyamoto appeared on stage and announced several promotional events and items for the Wii to celebrate the 25th Anniversary. First off was the announcement of a Legend of Zelda: Symphony Tour that will go around the world this year. He then announced a gold Wii Remote with the Triforce symbol for the release of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Finally, two CD soundtracks were announced. The first was that of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for free to those that register the 3DS version of said game with Club Nintendo. The second is the CD soundtrack for the Legend of Zelda: Symphony tour.

It wasn’t all about goodies. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D was announced to hold both the original game plus the Master Quest (a harder version of the game), and a boss battle mode in which you can replay boss fights within the game. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was announced that the game will only be played with the Wii Motion Plus. Finally, Legend of Zelda: Four Swords was announced as a free download next month to the DSi platform hoping to strike up four-player Zelda goodness.

As he left the stage, Satoru Iwata appeared on stage and talked about the innovations Nintendo has taken with DS, Wii, 3DS, and then hinted at their new console, but didn’t bring out any details. The room darkened as the giant screen began to show CG movies about Mario Kart 3D, Star Fox 64 3D (complete with a small mugshot of Peppy saying the iconic “Do a barrel roll.”), Super Mario, Kid Icarus, and ended with a new Luigi’s Mansion. Reggie Fils-Aime was next on the stage as they showcased the five games you just saw.

Mario Kart 3D looks just like the other games in the series, including bringing back previous levels. But one of the cool aspects shown off was for the first time, you can customize your own racing karts. This way, players can get the right balance of having the karts look cool and perform just the way they want to. Star Fox 64 showed that you can use the motion sensors in the 3DS to fly your Arwing around instead of just using the control pad. It will also have four player multiplayer and will stream a video of yourself while flying, so you can taunt players you just killed, or watch them when they get crashed.

Then a new Super Mario was teased, complete with gameplay footage this time; it looks to be a mix of the old Super Mario Bros. style with a bit of Super Mario 64 influence. The different power ups are there, including the Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Fire Flower. Kid Icarus came back showing off the same gameplay as last year but confirmed the game is entirely voice acted. It will also have 3 on 3 team multiplayer. Finally it was something that some of us were excited to see: Luigi’s Mansion 2. This time Luigi is hunting ghosts in multiple mansions, not just one. Gameplay looked almost the same as it’s Gamecube version. All of the titles, with the exception of Luigi’s Mansion 2, will be coming out by the end of this year.

Nintendo then showed montages of other games made by 3rd party developers: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries, Mario & Sonic at the London Games, Ace Combat, Tetris, Cave Story 3d, Resident Evil Revelations, Driver: Renegade, Pac-Man and Galaga Dimensions, Tekken 3D, and finally Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 3D. No dates were given for any of those titles. Reggie returned to talk about the recently updated 3DS firmware and the eShop channel. He started by letting people know they could get a free, remastered in 3D (yet still 8 bit) copy of Excitebike. He also talked about the Pokedex, also free, on the eShop channel for Pokemon fans.

Nintendo had most of us once the 3DS games started pouring in. But now it was time for Nintendo’s latest system, what had been refereed to as Project: Cafe for the past month. The name of the console: Wii U. A video was played showcasing the controller, what looked to be a controller fused with a tablet. With the Wii U, it features HD, 1080p visuals but the rest of the specs of the system was not released. As for a date, 2012. It was shown that you can either use the controller as a secondary screen, like the touch screen on the DS; to use it to amply a game, like a sniper scope in a shooting game; or even use it to continuously play your game if the TV needs to be used for someone else. All the information we know is listed here.

It has been confirmed that Darksiders 2 will be made for the Wii U. And the crowd went wild when Iwata announced that a Super Smash Bros. game was being worked on for both the Wii U and the 3DS and will be able to connect with one another. The Wii U will also accept the original Wii peripherals such as the remote and nunchuck and all Wii games will work on the Wii U. Other games shown for the Wii U by third party developers were Aliens: Colonial Marines, Ghost Recon Online, Metro Last Light, Tekken, and Ninja Gaiden 3. Even EA joined on stage to talk about how amazing the Wii U could be to their franchises like Madden NFL and even Battlefield 3.

With Nintendo’s conference over, many people left amazed by the Wii U, but still had loads of questions–questions that Nintendo will answer when they feel the time is right.

We’ll stay on top of an Wii U and more 3DS information as it comes out.

 

The press conference started off with an almost 10-minute demo of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The player onstage began the level under water, swimming around enemies, planting bombs on enemy submarines, and eventually worked his way to the surface. The demo was filled with quick-time events, battles, and other gameplay mechanics that fans of the series expect from a CoD title, with graphics looking ten times better than that of the previous installment. Sledgehammer Games and Infinity Ward are teaming up to bring us the next big epic coming November 8th. It was also announced near the end that the DLC for Modern Warfare 3 will arrive first on Xbox 360.

From there it was to the new Tomb Raider title, a prequel to the franchise explaining how Lara ended up in her chosen career. The game starts off with her captured, hanging upside down and wrapped in a cloth. After a daring escape in which she relies solely on her natural survival instincts, she continues through the level, nursing her wounds and trying to figure out where she is and how not to die. The characterization of Lara in this demo was really well done, showing a young, panicked girl instead of the fearless warrior. We can assume the rest of the game will play out the events that shaped her into the video game legend she is. Tomb Raider will launch this fall.

Peter Moore of Electronic Arts took the stage announcing that four EA Sports titles will have Kinect support: Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, and one more they teased but never announced. But then BioWare took the stage and explained to us how Mass Effect 3 is Kinect-friendly. Still using the controller for actual character movement and shooting, but Kinect will be supported for vocal commands. Players can actually say the line in the dialogue choices instead of using the controller. You can also use the vocal commands to issue commands to your teammates in the middle of combat such as moving somewhere or using a special attack. (Check out Jennifer’s article here.)

Ubisoft was next, showing a pre-rendered movie on Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. But their time wasn’t spent talking about the next installment of the franchise; it was to show off the new Gun Smith, Kinect-friendly mode. Using the Kinect, players can modify any gun down to the core details such as barrels or triggers, with over 20 million combinations to choose from. You can also tell it to optimize for certain scenarios, such as long range or close quarters, and the game will automatically make a weapon for that situation. Then still using the Kinect, you can test out the weapon you just made before going into combat with it. Ubisoft said that all future Tom Clancy titles will have Kinect support, but did not give a release date for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Sad.

After that it was onto the actual Xbox Dashboard. It is, once again, getting a new facelift, but this time can be used entirely by the Kinect. It will also feature Youtube and Bing support  as well as Xbox TV, which appears to be a live streaming program like Hulu. And the big announcement was you can now order UFC matches and watch with friends, even place bets on the outcome of the match.

Exclusive Xbox 360 games were next, and it started off with a demo of Gears of War 3. The 5 minute demo played on stage by hip-hop artist Ice-T showed off what looked like a beginning level and featured a water creature tearing apart their floating island. From there it was another Kinect game made by Crytek based on the fall of Rome.

Up next was a nice surprise. Remember how we were continued to be told how Halo: Combat Evolved was not going to be remade for the 360? Yeah, they lied to us. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a fully redone HD rendering of Halo: Combat Evolved, will be out November 15th with full Xbox Live co-op and multiplayer support. Forza 4 was shown next for a brief moment on stage before showing it’s release date of October 11. And then Peter Moore came up to show off Fable: The Journey which will be coming soon. It will have full Kinect support, but looks to be nothing more than an “on rails” shooter using magic.

Back on the third party side, everyone was taken by surprise as it was announced that indie game Minecraft was coming out for the Xbox 360 and Kinect. (If that wasn’t an excuse to pick up a Kinect, I’m not sure what is.)

Then it was time to show off the kid-friendly Kinect titles. First was Disneyland Adventures, in which lazy players get to explore the Disneyland Park virtually instead of going to Florida or California. It’s a mini-game title; something kids will no doubt enjoy. And then it transitioned straight into Star Wars Kinect. In this”on rails”-esque hack and slash game, living room Jedi get a chance to fight during the Clone Wars, facing off against Battle Droids and Dark Jedi. (No hinted at release date!) Last up was Tim Schafer with his new game Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. In this Kinect-based game, players will interact with Elmo and Cookie Monster through different stories by doing different actives such as “dancing like a monster” or guiding light bugs to a tree.

It was then back to Microsoft as they announced Kinect Fun Labs available now. With this application, you can make your Xbox Avatar look exactly like you, even including the clothes you are wearing. You can also make digital objects out as physical objects just by scanning it with the camera. And the final one was Finger Tracking in where you can take two pictures and by using your finger, making different effects, even drawing around objects in 3D. Just a fun little add-on for those with Kinect.

The last two games announced were Kinect Sports: Season 2 and Dance Central 2. The second Kinect Sports features Baseball, Football, Tennis, Golf, Skiing, and Golf. Dance Central 2 announced that all the songs from Dance Central are importable and there is a new 2-player co-op mode.

And finally, just as the conference was about to end, a “new trilogy” was announced. A cryptic trailer began as a camera tracked what looked like a blood vessel through a body with muffled sounds of a woman shouting “John”. Suddenly, the camera panned out to show Master Chief from Halo waking up from cyro-sleep, picking up where Halo 3 left off.

Halo 4, Holiday 2012. Insert screaming fans here.

The Microsoft Press Conference was amazing, and the games featured look incredible… if you plan on getting a Kinect. I can’t wait to see what the rest of E3 2011 has in store!