Bungie may be good at making Halo games, but they are also fairly good at teasing the living hell out of their fans. The latest example is a video which displays the voice of Luke Smith magically coming out of a blue Spartan. Amazingly, the video is entirely in-game footage.
The video was made as Bungie’s response to the Edge Innovation Award (which Halo 3 has won two years running now), and it displays this blue spartan running around various parts of the multiplayer map “Rat’s Nest” being a really jerk by telling us that Bungie is hard at work at some project. While he wouldn’t say what the project was, there was plenty of hints that it was another Halo game (the biggest being that the video is run in Halo 3 itself). At one point he even says, “Even though in Halo 3 you finished the fight, it doesn’t necessarily mean the rides over.” Isn’t that confirmation enough?
However, the video could just be teasing a map editor (go to the very end) or maybe AI enemies in multiplayer. What do you think?
Tucked into Nintendo’s flaming turd of a press conference at E3 was the very interesting announcement of a peripheral that attaches to the Wiimote that allows for 1:1 functionality. However, at E3, Nintendo only showed this game with Wii Sports 2, so there wasn’t much technical information or potential uses demoing going on. Well, boring tech company AiLive has given us a pretty boring demo of MotionPlus that is surprisingly exciting, except for the horrible handycam and the monotonous techie giving the demo. The company really displays the potential of Wii MotionPlus and, I have to say, I’m actually pretty excited for it now. Tip: skip to around the 1:50 mark; that’s when it get’s interesting.
Plenty of buzz has been going around the past few days about Microsoft’s not so surprising announcement of a complete dashboard revamp this Fall. And surprisingly, a lot of it has been negative. Well I’m here to give you the facts about the New Xbox Experience, as Microsoft has been calling it.
Let’s start out with a great developer walkthrough of the New Xbox Experience:
The Dashboard
So the new dashboard is now filled with various channels, including My Xbox 360, Community, and Videos, which you switch by going up or down and navigate through by going left or right. It seems as though it’s perfectly designed for those people who navigate the Xbox 360 using a remote control. So that makes about four people happy.
As for the channels themselves, they look very…interesting. Don’t get me wrong, the Game and Primetime channels are very clean, but the Community channel just looks like a mess to me. Having all of your friends’ characters on one screen at the same time just doesn’t sound fun to me.
The Guide Button
To those of you who preferred the old blade system by far, it may seem like you’re in trouble because the new dashboard update is mandatory. However, hitting the Guide button now brings up an interface very, very similar to the original Xbox 360 dashboard.
And it’s important to note that this blade system is accessible at anytime. That means when you’re playing Call of Duty 4, you can just hit the guide button and jump into one of your XBLA games at any time.
Avatars
So there is a new Avatar system for the Xbox 360 and, yes, they look very much like Miis. Like I said above, they seem to all appear on the Community channel representing each one of your friends and they are designed to become your Gamerpic.
So does that make all of the gamerpics, which you spent wasted money on, useless? Not exactly, because these avatars are completely optional, unlike the update. So your gamerpics will still be usable. On the same note, so will your themes, which Marc Whitten said will look “beautiful” on the new interface.
Installing Games on HDD
With this new update, Microsoft has also allowed users to install full games onto their hard drives. This feature should quicken load times, but also anger 20 GB SKU owners, who already get mad at having to delete demos and videos every other week. The game also has to be inserted in the disc drive for the game to play, which gets rid of the possibility of trading a game around so you don’t have to buy it. Unfortunate, but completely understandable on Microsoft’s part.
Netflix
In the Video channel of the New Xbox Experience, Microsoft has just added support of Netflix movies. This means that if you have a Netflix account, you can stream movies to your Xbox 360 at any time. This effectively doubles the starving Xbox Live Video Marketplace and makes it a contender in the digital video arena. The quality for these movies is largely dependent on internet speed, but although they are below DVD quality, they still look good.
No Browser Support
Although the Xbox Live Marketplace is becoming accessible through any computer, the internet is not becoming accessible through the Xbox 360, at least on this update. It is strange, especially considering that both the PS3 and the Wii have built in web browsers.
Well there you have it, folks. That’s all the information you should need about the upcoming New Xbox Experience. Hopefully knowing more about the New Xbox Experience will make you more excited for the update. Or, it could just as easily make you dread the day it’s released.
Eight years after the release of Diablo 2 and after years of speculation, Blizzard has recently officially announced the existence of Diablo 3. And, as to be expected, Diablo fans have lit up the internet with their cries of joy. Here is the teaser trailer:
The gameplay and graphics are similar to the original Diablos (sad news for those who were looking for an MMO) and Diablo 3 will will feature an isometric perspective and the same Mana and Life bubbles. Interactive environments will be playing a big role in Diablo 3, as well. There will be a new Witch Doctor class, which has the ability to summon pets, cast diseases, and control minds of enemies. Also, there will be a female version of every class in the game. Blizzard has also noted that Diablo 3 will have co-op and multiplayer elements. And Mac users can rest easy, because Blizzard has announced that Diablo 3 will be releasing simultaneously on the Mac.
Check out the gameplay and artwork trailers after the break.
EA has released three new trailers for their upcoming game Battlefield: Bad Company and it looks like they are taking a very strange marketing approach to the game: making fun of games that are good. The three games that the trailers parody are Gears of War, Rainbow Six, and Metal Gear Solid. Here’s the Gears parody trailer:
So they made fun of the brilliant commercial for Gears of War, by having a random infantryman destroy Gary Jules’ cover of the Tears for Fears classic “Mad World”. And, surprisingly, it was kind of funny. But wait, there’s more. The Rainbow Six parody is even funnier, and the Metal Gear one reaches a new level of hilariousness. Check them out, after the break.
One potential problem with this strategy though, EA. What happens when the people figure out that Bad Company isn’t as good as Gears of War, Rainbow Six, or Metal Gear Solid? (Burn!)
As some of you may have seen on the Xbox Live Dashboard, the first trailer for Call of Duty: World at War was released very early this morning. And here it is:
So there you have it, folks. The Treyarch developed, next game in the Call of Duty series looks ( I can’t believe I’m saying this) halfway decent from this trailer. Previously, I was inclined to fully write this game off, but after this trailer, I may give Treyarch the benefit of the doubt.
I was sifting through Xbox Focus when I found this Halo 3 Forge video. Sure it may be pretty weird, but it’s also funny as hell. So watch it, enjoy it. Turn down the volume though, the music is slightly annoying.
