FYI: PS4, MGSV, BF4 & More

Announcements

  • Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain announced for PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 (next-gen announcement could be at E3 2013)
  • New PlayStation 4 details emerged (via NeoGAF)
  • Battlefield 4 officially announced for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Media

17 minute Battlefield 4 Single Player Gameplay Video

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Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Shows Promise?

Assassin’s Creed III didn’t win me over with any of its trailers. It didn’t look “different” enough. This latest instalment , dubbed Black Flag, appears to have infused a lot of naval battles and replaced the forests of New England with tropical jungles.

I don’t know how much of the fundamentals have changed but I do appreciate the infusion of color.

I forgot about Lost Planet 3

I completely forgot that Capcom’s Lost Planet 3 and I certainly forgot that they gave this third installment to a western studio, Spark Unlimited.

Here’s a trailer of the upcoming game and yes it does remind me of Avatar.

What is up with video game space ships? They’re so unreliable.

I’m not here to raise awareness of Lost Planet 3 though. I want to reminisce about the first Lost Planet’s demo. I already mentioned it was my first single player and multiplayer demo of this console generation. But I neglected to outline the fact that it was my first multiplayer shooter with a controller and the first multiplayer experience on a console.

Lost Planet didn’t set the world on fire but it did include ideas in its multiplayer that aren’t present in shooters today. It’s one of the few games that encouraged vertical gameplay through its implementation of the grappling hook. There are giant ass mechanical “Vital Suits” on the battlefield for players to pilot. Players can mount weapons on them but also remove those Vital Suit giant Gatling guns for player use as well. It’s nuts.

Lost Planet 2 may have brought back those ideas but they didn’t do a good job modernizing those ideas and the interface. I hope the upcoming generation of consoles brings this kind of wackiness back. Multiplayer shooters have become too safe and there’s  no better way to shake things up then during the early stages of a console generation.

Who knows? Maybe Lost Planet 3′s multiplayer is exactly what I was hoping. Maybe Spark Unlimited will pull off a great modern third person shooter with Vital Suits and grappling hooks. I have my doubts but I’m willing to be wrong. It would be fitting to see everything come full circle where I somehow end the console generation by purchasing and completing my first Lost Planet game.

Mass Effect 3: Citadel – Shepard’s Last Adventure

Apparently this is the final piece of DLC for Mass Effect 3 and Commander Shepard herself (I refuse to acknowledge dude Shepard).

The dialog is corny has hell and it doesn’t have my favorite Salarian, Mordin but that music is wonderful. I don’t think I’ll get back into Mass Effect via this piece of DLC though. I picked up the “Lair of the Shadow Broker” because it contributed to the lore in a significant way. This “Citadel” piece simply looks like a reunion episode and I don’t need that yet.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Trailer

Part two of StarCraft II will debut on March 12, 2013. I have yet to play “Wings of Liberty” so watching this spoiler filled trailer was a bit of a mistake on my part. Oh well.

I have no plans on picking up any of these StarCraft II titles until the “BattleChest” debuts which I suspect it will be sometime in 2016 going by Blizzard’s release schedule. I have no interest in the multiplayer so being out of “the loop” on that front is okay by me.

DKCR 3D Reminds Me That I Suck

I still haven’t finished Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii. My excuse is that my Wii has a bit of an issue with “digital artifacts” and the Wii was in the living room which I didn’t always have access to at the time. Maybe I should get the Nintendo 3DS version.

If this trailer is accurate and not some kind of Nintendo trickery, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D looks to be an extremely faithful port of the Wii title. It is probably going to be the definitive version since they will likely map the “roll” function to a button and not a waggle.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is expected to arrive sometime this summer.