Starcraft II – Heart of the Swarm gets underway in an appropriately epic fashion

If there’s anybody out there who still doesn’t believe that Blizzard are the gods of cinematics, you might want to leave the room or something. We’ve got Hydralisks slicing through Marines, Ultralisks stomping on Siege Tanks and Kerrigan gloating over it all. Or was she? Who cares? Honestly, the only way this trailer could’ve been any better was if Mengsk had shown up, screaming ‘YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP!’ Wings of Liberty set the bar really high with one of my all-time favourite trailers, but Kerrigan and co. have just matched it.

I’ll hold my hand up and admit it – Heart of the Swarm wasn’t particularly high on my radar before today, but all that’s changed in 3 spectacular minutes. March 12th can’t come soon enough.

In Metro: Last Light’s Russia, there are no Sundays

A weary Russian voice reading the opening to ‘Genesis’ isn’t the usual soundtrack for a game trailer, but it sure works for Metro: Last Light. I’m itching to step back into Artyom’s shoes, and this trailer doesn’t help. Metro 2033 is one of the more underrated games of the past couple of years; let’s hope that Last Light can polish up that legacy a bit. Speaking of which, I’d be remiss if I didn’t inform you that you can snag yourself a free copy of Metro 2033 simply by liking this Facebook page. (and I highly recommend you do so!)

Bonus reading – over on Kotaku, Jason Schreier’s written an article titled ‘Thirteen Things You Should Know About Metro: Last Light‘. One of his observations made me laugh out loud, and I’m going to quote it here in the hopes that it’ll convince you to head on over and have a look:

8. In the bar, your character can sit next to a homely, somewhat overweight woman. As you drink, she’ll get skinnier and more attractive. Classy!

And finally – how about that box art, eh? I quite like it!

What I thought about the VGAs 2012

A picture of Johnny Drama’s gotta be worth at least a billion words, but I shall try to elaborate nonetheless. Here’s what I thought about:

The Walking Dead winning Game of the Year

See above picture. Seriously, if XCOM wasn’t it, this is the only GOTY winner I’d have been happy with. It’s a testament to the sheer quality and emotional impact that Telltale managed to pack into their stellar game. To put this victory into perspective, here’s a list of the publishers of the last 3 winners – Bethesda Softworks (subsidiary of ZeniMax Media), Rockstar Games and Sony Computer Entertainment, I think it’s safe to say that those are some pretty big fish.  Telltale made and published The Walking Dead, all off their own bat; and now, their name’s up on that list, deservedly so. For this achievement, they also won Studio of the Year, and I don’t think anybody would begrudge them that.

XCOM Enemy Unknown winning Best PC Game

XCOM was my personal pick for Best PC Game and Game of the Year, so I’m pretty happy that it picked this one up. I’m glad it’s gotten the recognition it deserves, even if it hasn’t quite managed the appropriate sales yet. Still, Take-Two’s happy, calling it a ‘commercial success’; and, if that means a sequel, so am I.

More after the break.

Spike Video Game Awards 2012 – and the winners are…

There’s always a certain amount of skepticism about the Spike VGAs, as there will be about any gaming awards that try to blend recognition with as much spectacle as this. And I don’t think anybody besides Spike themselves would disagree that the world would be a better place with fewer celebrities pretending to be obsessed with games. (It’s just awkward for everyone, really.)

I’ve been skeptical myself, but not this year. Why?

Because The Walking Dead won Game of the Year.

Once you recover from your shock/happiness, click on past the break for the full list of winners. Trust me, you’ll want to.

 

Everything you need to know about Far Cry 3

I’m currently waist-deep in Far Cry 3’s single-player campaign, and I’m loving every second of it. If you’ve yet to be convinced, however, Ubisoft’s latest trailer should get you off the fence. Clocking in at just over 10 minutes, ‘Revealed’ brings you up to speed on just about every aspect of Far Cry 3’s gameplay and story.

For those of you who prefer to head into a game with no knowledge of the setting or what might be in store, you should steer clear of this one. Those of you looking to get some info on Rook Island before you dive in, you’ve come to the right place.

No need to get excited, it’s only a brand-new trailer for GTA V

Almost a year after that wonderful debut (those teasing #$^!@#%s!) comes the second official trailer for GTA V. And if you haven’t clicked ‘play’ already, we need to have a talk.

A lot of information about GTA V’s been revealed in the last few weeks – we’ve got a release date, confirmation of the three-protagonists rumour and a fairly staggering estimate of the size of the gameworld we’ll be commiting all sorts of illegalities in come Spring 2013.

Click on past the break to find out what I thought about the video.

GTA V is coming your way in Spring 2013

From Take-Two’s official website comes the news that we’ve all been waiting for – GTA V will be kicking in your doors come Spring 2013. According to Wikipedia, that’s just about six months away! Better yet, it will be available for pre-order in less than a week, on November 5th! (Remember, remember!)

You know how, sometimes, when you get a piece of news that you’ve been eagerly awaiting for ages, you just kinda feel drained? Unable to summon up an adequate response? This would be one of those times.

 

Thankfully, however, here’s Australian newsman (and all-around class act) Karl Stefanovic to do it for me:

14 minutes of Far Cry 3 gameplay just might bring you to your (shananananananananananana) knees (knees)

I know that most developers probably have a million better things to do than talk enthusiastically at a camera but damn, isn’t it just refreshing to listen to a couple of guys play a game and have some fun? Jamie Keen (lead game designer) and Mark Thompson (level design director), take a bow. Some fairly unsubtle name-dropping at 4:21 would be the highlight of a very watchable video. Or maybe the lighthearted joshing over a couple of suspiciously accurate shots, followed by constant sniping (no pun intended) about a woefully-wide arrow.

As enjoyable as the banter was, it wouldn’t mean scratch if the game wasn’t up to snuff. However, with every video I see, Far Cry 3 is looking more and more exciting. That dynamic open-world is the stuff life-destroying games are made of, and I can see myself losing quite a few hours to those islands. I’ve been down this road before, with Far Cry 2; and that didn’t quite work out, for any number of reasons. Far Cry 3, on the other hand, has done everything right so far and could just be the dark horse success in a very crowded release window.
Fun fact – before writing that title, I actually slowed down ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and tried to count the exact number of times that Axl says ‘na’. In between ‘sha’ and ‘knees’, of course; if you didn’t get that reference, you have absolutely no business looking at me like I’m a crazy person. Everybody else, feel free.

Not sure if Aliens: Colonial Marines or Left 4 Xenomorphs

Your mileage may vary, but my immediate response to the above trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines was a heartfelt ‘D’oh!’. Why? Well, the trailer – which focuses on the upcoming release’s Escape multiplayer mode – bears more than a passing resemblance to the Survivors vs. Infected gameplay found in Left 4 Dead‘s Versus games. And once you make that connection, it’s a forehead-slapping-worthy moment when you realize just how well that type of gameplay would work in the Aliens universe. Heck, so many missions in the earlier games used to end like this anyway; the difference being that this time there’ll be other players dropping on you from the ceiling or bursting out of the walls. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good Saturday night. (They’re alright for fightin’, don’t you know?)

This must be how the guy who accidentally mixed peanut butter and jelly together for the first time felt. Or bacon and…well, anything, really.

Bioshock Infinite shows us the beast and worst of America

In-game footage, awesome action, bad-ass enemies, jaw-dropping scripted sequences, death-defying leaps, death-inflicting leaps, possible links to Rapture and a really catchy song – if there was a checklist that Irrational Games was working through when they made ‘Beast of America’, I’d say they must’ve damn near checked all those boxes.

Columbia sure looks lovely in between all the things that are trying to kill you. Bit of a Boardwalk Empire vibe near the beginning, which was quite nice.