Normally a video game meeting its publishing deadline wouldn’t be a big deal but for Duke Nukem Forever it is a major accomplishment.  After its initial announcement in 1997 as a sequel to the classic Duke Nukem 3D, the game had become an industry joke after missing countless deadlines and undergoing several major overhauls with new game engines.  All the while the promise of a new game was kept alive with showings of exciting in-game footage and trailers at some E3s. By 2009, however, it looked like the game was all but dead when its original developer, 3D Realms, laid off the Duke staff for budget reasons.  After a nasty bit of lawsuit business between publisher and said developer for failure to finish the project; a small development team known as Triptych Studios began to resurrect the dream.

By now, Duke should have a back catalog the size of Lara Croft’s or Solid Snake’s, but it didn’t work out that way.  What we do have is his first polished full-featured triple-A title since 1998’s A Time to Kill. The new game will be rated M with plenty of crude humour and testosterone-filled one-liners you can mimic until your girlfriend punches you “right in the jewels”.

*Editor’s Note: Duke Nukem Forever is a filthy game intended for adults and as such I have decided to use some less pleasant language during the course of this preview, I have kept it to a minimum but if certain words that start with an “F” or “C” offend you then you may want to pass on this article… and probably on Duke Nukem Forever as well*

The biggest bad-ass in video games, circa 1996 at least, is finally back with a vengeance after an over fifteen year hiatus (lets be honest, no one counts those spin-off games). In development for over twelve years the newest installment of Duke Nukem has become something of joke among hard-core gamers over the last eight years. When developer 3D Realms discontinued development everyone thought that being able to play it was something that would never happen, but now the rights have been shifted to Gearbox Software. Because you asked for it and because you need it Gearbox Software and 3D Realms is fucking bringing it! Duke Nukem Forever will finally see a release on May 3, 2011. I know I took my day off of work!

So now that we know Duke is back in action the big question on everyone’s mind is going to be if the game was worth the twelve year wait? Well it is too early to tell but I can assure you from the little bit of the game I was able to play that it is shaping up nicely for fans of the previous game.

I can only assume you will be free to write whatever you want in this kids book. BTW 3D Realms needs to make that book, I would totally read that.

Control is very much like that of the original game, it may be a little too stiff for some people, but it is as classic as it comes. There are also newly added driving controls which were reminiscent of the Warthog in Halo, during the demo I got to take Duke’s monster truck around for a spin, but I really had trouble with the driving, I kept running into the sides. The steroid and beer power-ups return, but since there is no health bar anymore (replaced with a recharging “Ego” bar) they instead just give Duke a temporary boost in power, but at a cost; the beer, for example, will cause the screen to go fuzzy after just one drink (I always knew Duke was a lightweight). The weapons in the demo were all classics, the shotgun and the ripper machine gun being my personal favorites. I still hate the shrink-ray (which makes an appearance), I can never hit anything with that gun, but I can imagine it will lead to all sorts of hilarity in multiplayer so I better get good with it.

Interactivity is still a major part of Duke Nukem, and in Duke Nukem Forever they have taken it to a whole new level. Most of the previews you’ve been reading have no doubt made a major point of mentioning the excessively long piss can take, or the fact that you can yank a turd out of the toilet and throw it while Duke asks why you make him do these things, but those are just the most minor of abilities. In the beginning of the demo, for example, is a dry erase board detailing the battle plans to take down the massive alien wreaking havoc inside the Hollywood Bowl (I imagine that is where you are, but it has been so long since I played Duke 3D I could be wrong). By interacting with the board you get total control to erase the marker and write whatever you want on their, I personally drew a penis pointing to the alien’s face on the board because I have the imagination of a sixth grader and besides, the soldier looking at the board with me thought it was a solid plan (which I officially named “Operation: Cock-on-Mouth”), even though he didn’t understand it. I was also told that there was even more diverse interactive objects in the game, though I couldn’t get many details past a rumor of a “fully functional pinball machine”.

As a seasoned commander Operation: Cock Block just wasn't up to my standards, so Operation: Cock-on-Mouth was born.

My all too brief journey with Duke began where Duke Nukem 3D ended (unless you bought the expansion), with Duke fighting one of the massive alien leaders called The Cycloid  inside of a football stadium. I began inside of a bathroom where the very first thing the game told me to do was to take a leak in the urinal, you can drag this out as long as you want, but I had some ass to kick so I finished up fast, Duke can blame his UTI on me later. Right outside the soldiers were going over the plan to take out the Cycloid, which basically involved them all bum-rushing him, but that plan wasn’t good enough for me so I instead, like I said before, drew a penis pointed directly at the alien bastard before heading through the stadium to meet him face to face. After listening to some soldiers talk, and watching part of the stadium almost fall on me I was able to get my hands on a rocket launcher and begin the ascent to the surface to make my dream, Operation: Cock-on-Mouth a reality… it basically involved shooting The Cycloid in the face with rockets until I ran out of ammo, then reloading and shooting my load (heheh) again. It was a simple plan from a simpler time, but it seemed to get the job done. The battle remains reasonably faithful to the original, except that it isn’t ridiculously hard, but you still get to kick a field goal with his football shaped eye at the conclusion. Afterwards the camera zooms out to reveal that Duke was in fact playing the game while seeming to receive some oral gratification from a pair of twins in some very revealing schoolgirl uniforms (my favorite kind); taking a stab at itself the girls ask Duke whether the game was good, to which he replies, “Yeah, but after twelve fucking years it should be.”

The second part of the demo, which made up the bulk of it, was the level Highway 2. At the beginning you get to drive around for a few minutes in Duke’s truck, like I said before the driving controls could use a little work, but after it runs out of fuel and breaks down your goal becomes to find more gas to finish up the level. It is a pretty straight forward level and is very reminiscent of Duke 3D, you just move through a largely linear path and shoot at pig cops. There is honestly not much to say about it past the fact that I did hit a few glitches (bear in mind though this build I was playing was pretty old, and I was assure that a lot of these concerns have been fixed). The first glitch I hit was when you need to use a rocket launcher to shoot down a space ship, I made the mistake of dropping the
rocket launcher when I ran out of ammo, not knowing there was more ammo around the corner, but the launcher disappeared and there was no other way to take out the ship, so I needed to restart the battle. the second was during a part when you need to push a mine cart up a hill and jump in it to use the momentum to make a jump you can’t normally make, but when the cart got dislodged from the track while pushing I had no choice but to try to make the jump myself which didn’t go so well. Other than that I was golden.

I got pretty beat up by just one of those little ships, I can't imagine how I will fare against the big one in the background.

Gearbox promises that the game is going to pose quite the challenge and from the demo I played I can agree with them. It definitely has an old school FPS vibe going and the difficulty is just one part of that. They also said the game would be quite lengthy, like games from the time tended to be, promising a good 15-20 hours of single player game, as well as a decent slathering of multiplayer.

I am not sure if the game has gone gold yet, but I am 100% confident they will make the announced release date of May 3rd and you can bet we will have a review of the game around that time. There will be a regular edition released as well as a Balls of Steel Edition which I have my heart set on; the collectors package will include the usual array of bonus content, as well as a Roman style bust of Duke that would look just awesome on my shelf (unless I can somehow get ahold of a marble pillar). It’s almost time people, keep your fingers crossed.

Up until I played the game I honestly thought it was a StarCraft spinoff, turns out I was wrong.

In FireFall humanity hasn’t been having the best of luck recently. After a major conflict called The Crystite Wars the Earth was enveloped in a disaster known as The Melding, basically a giant cataclysmic storm. A very small portion of the Earth is still habitable, which has prompted the remainder of humanity to band together into small armies and fight over any bit of land that is still available.

The campaign of the game was revealed last September at PAX Prime in Seattle. In it players grouped up to do missions in a giant open world environment, sort of like you combined Borderlands with World of Wacraft. The focus of PAXEast, however, was on the game’s highly competitive multiplayer in which player controlled armies (FireFall’s equivalentof guilds) duke it out in a series of classic multiplayer modes with a new twist.Matches were done at PAXEast on a great 5 on 5 map set in South America (Brazil if I remember correctly) called Sunken Harbor. The map was very well sized and spaced for a good 10 person match. It was also pretty decently detailed; with a colorful landscape and a historic Spanish galleon in the center. I was very impressed.

FireFall is primarily being shown off as a third person shooter, but with the simple click of the mouse wheel you will enter a first person view for more precise aiming.

The game is class based similar to Team Fortress 2 and the classes can be switched at your base anytime during the match by switching your battleframe (this determines your class and loadout). Each class has a customizable loadout and earnable upgrades and power moves. Three classes were showcased at PAX though there are going to be more in the final game. The first frameI played with was the Assault battleframe, which is usually my go to class in FPS multiplayer. Assault is essentially the tank of the group, having the highest amount of hit points and the strongest weapon, the plasma cannon, which fires balls of plasma which can do some serious damage and also cause splash damage. Their main ability is called Crater, when you are in the air you can activate this ability which will slam you down on the ground damaging opponents around you, it’s pretty funny to do. They also have a charge ability called Afterburner which launches you in the direction you are facing, good for getting around behind enemies. The final ability is called Overcharge which grants you extra damage for a little amount of time. All abilities are set to cooldowns similar to most MMORPGs which keeps things balanced, though some of the cooldowns seemed a little long compared to the usefulness of them.

The second frameI tried out was the Medic battleframe. This is pretty much the major support class of the game. The main weapon they have is the medic gun, which heals your teammates when you shoot them with it and can be supercharged with your first ability. They use an assault rifle as a backup, just like the Assault rig, but if you are using this weapon you probably aren’t doing your job. The second ability they get is a healing burst, which heals all nearby teammates, which can be mighty useful in a larger scale battle. The final ability for the Medic is defibrilate, while everyone can revive a downed teammate (when you run out of health you drop to the ground but won’t respawn until the enemy finishes you off), the Medic is the only one who can instantly revive however with that ability.

The game has some nice high-res cellshading and excellent looking environments, but Red5 let me know that work is being done to also allow the game to run on lower end systems and still look good.

The final one I used was the newly announced Recon Battleframe, which is the sniper class of the game. Theirmain weapon is a sniper rifle… go figure. The rifle is remarkably accurate but you need to land some pretty good shots to drop a person in one shot. Needless to say I sucked at it, I can’t even snipe people in Call of Duty and that is pretty much one shot all around. Their second weapon looked to be a silenced assault rifle, which doesn’t do too much in multiplayer but could be useful in the campaign. As far as abilities the Recon frame seemed to have the most offensive powers. The first one was an exploding bullet called resonating bullet, which had the remarkable power to let me actually kill other players. The second is a cryo bullet which slows down the person you shoot and also drains them of their powers for a few seconds; which does have some support uses, but can still drop an enemy is done correctly. The last ability, and my personal favorite amongst the Recon, is a long range mine which can be shot across the entire map if needed. It can be pretty funny to shoot at people.

Bear in mind that these battleframes are fully customizable and the loadouts I used were selected by Red5 for the demonstration, so a ton more abilities and weapons will be usable in the final game.

All in all FireFall was one of the bigger surprises for me at PAXEast, I really enjoyed it and can’t wait for the final release, which should be released sometime later in the year.

Most people on their 21st birthday go out to a bar to drink. I myself had college finals, afterwhich me and some friends tried to go to dinner at a local Frostburg hibachi restaurant, after we found out there was a two hour wait we decided to go to a movie which ended up being sold out. At this point my friends gave up so my 21st birthday ended up being me and my roommate eating Pizza, drinking cider and watching CSI. My bad luck on my 21st birthday pales in comparison to Jackie Estacado’s from 2007′s The Darkness. In the course of just one night he lost two of his friends during a massive gunfight, was set up to be killed by his paranoid adoptive uncle, became bonded to an ancient demon called The Darkness, and had to watch his girlfriend and longtime love Jenny be murdered right in front of him by the man who raised him. Talk about a crappy birthday. It’s been two years since Jackie’s life fell apart and he embraced The Darkness living inside of him. Now he is back to his old mafioso ways and has taken over as the head of the crime family, but a mysterious group of people are after him so they can steal the powers of The Darkness for themselves.  

If you sneak up on your enemies you can grab them with your Demon Arms... This particular fellow is about to have a very bad day...

At the start of the demonstration Jackie’s luck doesn’t seem to have improved, he has been taken captive by the mysterious organization and crucified while a strange device sucked the power of The Darkness right out of him. The first thing I noticed is the radical difference in art styles. The original game had a very gritty, dark and realistic  style, reminiscent of developer Starbreeze’s other title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. The new game features a cell shaded graphic style giving it a more comic book style. The game didn’t look as dark as its predecessor did, but it does a much better job of expressing the series’ comic book roots. After a brief  conversation with the leader of his captors a flashback begins showing Jackie out for dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant, he only just sits down with his two dates when the shooting starts and a van crashes through the window, mutilating Jackie’s leg. One of his henchmen grabs him and begins to drag him through the restaurant while Jackie, now in the player’s control, shoots at the attackers. Anyone who has played the first game will be right at home with the shooting mechanics, which remain a rather standard fare; right trigger shoots, left trigger aims (or fires the left weapon when two guns are drawn). Jackie is almost free from the restaurant when a gas explosion engulfs him and the remainder of his men, ending the first part of the flashback.  

Jackie isn't having a good night...but his isn't gonna be as bad as this guys.

Back at the torture party our busted antagonist (who looks a bit like a post car wreck Crispin Glover) explains that Jackie must give up The Darkness of his own free will, and if he doesn’t someone else close to him will die. Upon his refusal a large fellow is brought in to help persuade Jackie a little more, and after a few painful looking interaction it’s back to the gameplay. At this point Jackie is still a gimp, surrounded by enemies and potentially on fire, all hope seems lost when Jackie finally manages to crawl outside and into some shade, unleashing The Darkness, which proceeds to dish out its usual brand of slaughter. Jackie has his leg restored by The Darkness, which remarks in a creepy and familiar voice, “Death is not an option”; thankfully Faith No More singer Mike Patton returns to voice the title demon. Now we get to take a stab at using The Darkness itself in combat, more specifically the new and improve Demon Arms. Now you have the ability to manipulate more objects in the background, from poles and other sharp metal objects which can be thrown to dispatch foes in many horrifying ways to car doors which can be used as shields and mobile cover to protect you from enemy fire before being thrown. You can also grab enemies from behind (sometimes from the front if they are distracted enough) and perform grizzly execution moves. Jackie fights his way down the street to his limo only to be blown into a building by an explosion, again being put at the mercy of one of the enemies. It is now that Jackie’s old pal The Darkling makes a reappearance, saving him from his would be killer and giving him an uzi and some ammo to help him continue to fight. Instead of having multiple Darklings like the first game, now you only have the one. Instead of just being used as gun fodder though this one is pretty useful, he will not only attack and distract enemies but also grab ammo for Jackie in the middle of conflicts. He will also gain new abilities along with Jackie as the game progresses I am sure, but no details were given. The final area of the demo is an all too familiar subway tunnel, now you need to start combining gunplay and Jackie’s Darkness powers. This is again very familiar to anyone who has played the original game, you have a few new powers, but at the core it is still the same.  

The shootout in the subway gets pretty intense, but you must be cognisant of the overhead fluorescent lights which will ruin The Darkness's day.

I wont spoil how the demo ends, but it’s looking like things aren’t going to be any less tragic for our anti-hero this time around. The game is still early in development, but it is still looking remarkably well polished. The first game had some RPG elements in the gameplay, mainly side quests and dialogue trees, and while none of those were present in the demo I played and I couldn’t get a solid comment as to their inclusion I have a feeling that those elements will be returning. Major story details are still scarce, but fans of the comics will be happy to know that Paul Jenkins, writer for many of the original comics and also the first game, is returning to write the sequel. I played the game on an Xbox 360, and I know a PS3 version is in the works. I would also expect a PC version will be available. No release date has been set, but I think we can expect the game sometime early in 2012. I was a huge fan of the original and cannot wait to get my hands on the full game.  

As a final note I am going to just say that the original game is only $4.99 for a used copy on gamestop.com, so there is absolutely no excuse why you haven’t bought one of the most original shooters from the last 5 years. At the very least you can watch the entirety of To Kill A Mockingbird inside the game, that film is a classic and should be worth 5 bucks alone!

THQ is starting to become a company known for the high quality original IPs they release on a regular basis. Unfortunately they are also known for releasing fantastic games that don’t sell near the same numbers as the substandard rehash sequels put out by some of their competitors.

It looks like all this may be about to change however as Danny Bilson, an executive at THQ, told Eurogamer that Homefront, their upcoming first person shooter, has managed to score a reasonably impressive 200,000 confirmed pre-orders in the United States alone. When you think about these numbers in terms of juggernaut franchises like Halo, Gears of War or Call of Duty the numbers may not seem as impressive; but for an all new IP without two years of hype those numbers are pretty good.

Bilson also went on to address the rumors going around that THQ was planning on disbanding Kaos Studios following the game’s release. While neither confirming or denying the rumor he did state that “A lot of it has to do with how successful it is and how strong that core team comes out on the other side,”. Bilson also went on to say ”I love those guys. I’ve worked very closely with them on this game for years. There’s nothing disrespectful going on at all. We’re trying to do what’s best for everyone.”

You can read his statements in their entirety over at Eurogamer.

I can’t say I was the biggest fan of Kaos Studios’ last game, Frontlines: Fuel of War, but that was more because of it being nearly unplayable on Xbox Live; however I never like to see any developer close down, especially with a series as promising as Homefront only weeks from release. Fortunately the game is gearing up to be a big release for THQ, and they didn’t even need to package it with another full priced game in order to convince people to try it like they did with Darksiders.

Homefront is an upcoming first person shooter developed by Kaos Studios. The game is set in a disturbingly plausible world in which the United States is on the brink of collapse following an invasion from a unified Korean empire. The player takes on the role of a soldier in an underground American resistance based out of Colorado as they try to free their homeland from the oppressive invaders. If that story reminds you of the classic film Red Dawn in any way that is because it has been written by John Milius, the writer of Red Dawn and co-writer of Apocalypse Now. The game is due out March 15th and, as you can probably guess, I am one of those 200,000 people who pre-ordered it so you can expect a full review in the weeks following its release.

Original Source: Eurogamer

Brink is part disaster movie, part FPS, with a simple story: a man-made continent was created to shelter humanity against the flooding Earth. The authorities quickly realize they have more people than they can control, and the entire continent is on the brink of civil war (hey, I just got why they call it Brink!) The campaign lets players go through both sides of the war, and can be experienced completely cooperative with up to eight players online, sixteen players in total for multiplayer matches.

But what makes Brink stand out from other FPS team-only series like Battlefield or Team Fortress? Brink changes up the formula two ways. First, there are main objectives you need to accomplish such as defending the VIP or destroying the barricade. But Brink also allows players to accomplish secondary objectives. The main objective is still to guard the VIP, but capturing that command post from the enemy will allow the team to have another spawn zone. The second change to the formula is vertical combat. Brink allows the player multiple paths to your objective. It also introduces what’s called the SMART system. This allows the jumping/vaulting part of the game to be controlled automatically. You can easily climb over railings, jump from one floor to another, scale walls, etc, simply by sprinting up to whatever it is you need to scale/vault over. No other buttons needed!

The AI for the SMART system performs exactly like the name says.

There are four character classes in Brink: Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Operative. Each of them play out like they would in standard class based games like Battlefield. Each class has their own specialties, whether it’s handing out ammo or reviving fallen teammates. But what makes Brink standout is the RPG influence. With every level your character gains, you will be able to purchase feats to further your abilities such increased weapon damage or the ability to use gadgets. You’ll also be able to customize your favorite weapons with attachments such as scopes, shotgun attachments, grenade launchers, and a variety of other things.

Just a few examples of the different face gear for your character

Customizations don’t end there! Characters can also be tailored right down to the different facial structures, tattoos, clothing, and even the voice of the character—think Sims. But instead of having just one character, you can create up to sixteen individual accounts—all with different experience levels. So you can have a main character that you build for an assault that can be at, say, level 8, but if your friend recently got the game, you can make a brand new character at level 1. This also allows players to build different characters, or even play different factions.

So why would having different characters at different levels be important? Brink’s developers pointed out to us during the hands-on demo that the enemy AI will level up as your character levels up, and will able to have access to more weapons and abilities that the player would have access to. Although we’ve seen adaptable leveling with AI’s in such games like Mass Effect, they’re not normally found in action shooters. That’s where Brink stands out in the FPS-saturated market. This feature alone gives the player a constant challenge as enemies will get tougher and smarter throughout the campaign.

Brink is everything you’re looking for in a multiplayer game. It mixes up constant team deathmatch with objective based battles, and we cannot wait for the full version to launch later this year!

OnLive is one of the leaders of the cloud gaming movement. “What is cloud gaming?” you may be asking. Cloud gaming is what you would use if you want to play newer PC games without being able to afford a killer PC. The way it works is that you pay for the game and it is installed to a server just for you in the OnLive (or whichever service you use) server room. Then you log on from your PC and stream the game over the internet. It isn’t the most perfect way to play a game, there is delay and the potential of the servers going down or the service being discontinued, but it will be perfected and I believe become a new medium for those of us who have to buy our own computers and just don’t have the money to spend on a top notch gaming rig.

OnLive is currently having a fantastic deal to help get people into the service, which I would recomend anyone jump on as soon as possible. If you preorder Homefront from OnLive you will get a free OnLive Game System, which is a box you hook to your TV that acts in place of your computer, it even has a decent controller included to enjoy the action with. You will also get a free Play Pass (means a free install of the game basically) for Metro 2033, a remarkable first person shooter released by THQ last March. That is a $99 value for free when you preorder a $50 dollar game that, with all honesty, looks damn good to begin with.

Homefront is being release March 15th for the PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 and I know I will be picking it up myself (I preordered it from Best Buy to get the free limited edition headset). The game is a first person shooter set in a quite plausible future in which the US economy completely collapses and North Korea rejoins South Korea to become a new super power under the rule of Kim Jong-il’s son. After a Korean super-weapon disables the entire US infrastructure the Korean army invades. The player takes the role of a member of a small underground resistance movement which is taking a stand against the invaders in Montrose, Colorodo. Sound a little like the classic film Red Dawn? That is because the game is written by John Milius who also wrote that film back in the 80′s; he has also co-written a prequel novel set in the early months of the invasion titled Homefront: The Voice of Freedom, which I am currently reading, it’s pretty good so far so if you have any interest in the game check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Tobuscus#p/c/5AB4B8F2A335A9F7/0/YQ5c9BzohM4

via Kotaku

D.C. Douglas, the man who voices classic video game villain Albert Wesker, has recently added to his blog a series of fan-written voicemail messages and ringtones that you can download to use on your own device. All the man asks in return is that you donate to a charity, any charity will do. As an added bonus for Wesker fans he made a parody video of the hillarious Old-Spice commercials, only with Wesker selling Uroburos as a way to enhance your man’s puny human DNA. Check out the video above, then head over to D.C. Douglas’s blog and pick up the voice mail messages and ring tones, just make sure you donate to charity before or after you do so. I had a chance to donate to the Boy Scouts of America yesterday, which I passed on for morality reasons which I care not to explain, so I’ll throw a fiver (I’m pretty much broke until Friday, but you should totally donate more) into the charity collection for Ronald McDonald house when I go to pick up my lunch today, and write “From: Albert Wesker” on it just so they know who to thank.

This trailer for Dead Island is sure drumming up a lot of buzz on the internet for the controversial way in which it depicts the zombification and subsequent death of a child. But truth be told if you look past that you will see one of the best video game trailers to hit the net in a long time (It’s like zombies meet Christopher Nolan), even better than the Homeland Timeline which brought a feeling of realism to it’s storyline. We still have very little to go with on what Dead Island is actually about other than zombies, some may remember the 10-15 seconds of gameplay shown off back in 2007, so if nothing has changed in the last three years we can assume it is a first person shooter with a heavy melee component akin to Left 4 Dead 2 or the long since canceled City of the Dead.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think, does this trailer push it too far? Or are people just overreacting? Also does this game remind anyone else of the old PC title Flesh Feast?

If you want to see the video in chronological order check out the video below…