Gaming at Comic Con 2010: Take 2

By Lawrence Cicchetti 

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood 

 Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (AC:B) Continues where the last Assassin’s Creed left off and brings back the familiar protagonist, Ezio Auditore, as he assembles his own Brotherhood of Assassins to defeat the Templars.  Ubisoft promises over 15 hours of gameplay for the single-player version as well as bringing multiplayer for the first time in the franchise. 

 At the Ubisoft booth you could play a demo of the multiplayer wanted mode of AC:B where up to 8 players compete against each other for the highest amount of points based on quality and quantity of kills.  Each player is given a target and 

must eliminate the target as silently and swiftly as they can.  Every player chooses a character and a set of 2 abilities like a hidden gun or smoke bombs.  The game plays just like Assassin’s Creed with multiple players but still feels new and amazing.  Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood comes out November 16. 

Dragon Age 2 

            Ah yes the biggest game presented at Comic-Con.  EA had a room setup at the Gaslamp Hilton for Deadspace 2 and Dragon Age 2 for anyone to come and enjoy.  DA 2 premiered for the first time with actual gameplay just for the fans before they even talked to the press.  The spokesman gave a presentation on what people didn’t like about the first game and how they are working on improving it, than he gave a demonstration of the game showing us the new mechanics.  Afterwards we could actually play the demo shown to us.  The system itself is the same only without nearly as many bugs and much more impressive animation and action.  The demo included a battle using a warrior and a mage against a  

Dragon Age 2 

 Ah yes! The biggest game presented at Comic-Con.  EA had a room setup at the Gaslamp Hilton for Deadspace 2 and Dragon Age 2 for anyone to come and enjoy.  DA 2 premiered for the first time with actual gameplay just for the fans before they even talked to the press.  The spokesman gave a presentation on what people didn’t like about the first game and how they are working on improving it, than he gave a demonstration of the game showing us the new mechanics.  Afterwards we could actually play the demo shown to us.  The system itself is the same only without nearly as many bugs and much more impressive animation and action.  The demo included a battle using a warrior and a mage against a a slice of the framed narrative that is new in this game.  Dragon Age 2 comes out in 2011collection of dark spawn then followed

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Gaming at Comic Con 2010

By Lawrence Cicchetti

Walking the halls at Comic-con, you are met with a plethora of video games that you can play that still have yet to come out that you can play if you are willing to wait in line.  There were some big companies there like Electronic Arts and Capcom, who were displaying their newest up and coming games.

Deadrising 2:

Capcom’s next big game coming out is the sequel to their early 360 zombie-massacre game from way back in 2006.  The game takes place in Fortune city 5 years after the first Deadrising.  You take the role of Chuck Greene as he participates in a reality show called Terror is Reality where contestants must fight off zombies for a large cash prize.  Chuck is competing in the Show in order to gain Zombrex, the only cure for the zombie disease, for his daughter, who is infected.  However during the show there is another outbreak outside of where the competition is, and Chuck is framed for everything. 

The photography mechanic from the first game has been removed and replaced with a crafting system.  The player will pick up trading cards representing components that the player will combine using duct tape.  The player will be able to create weapons like the “Paddlesaw” which is an oar with chain saws attached to each end.

Thursday there was a panel with the executive producers, Keiji Inafune and Shinsaku Ohara, where they discussed the game as well as made quite a few announcements.  The first was the announcement was Deadrising 2: Case Zero, a game coming out exclusively for the Xbox Live Arcade for 400 Microsoft Points coming out August 31.  The scind announcement was the special Zombrex edition of the game which comes with making of featurette and the ps3 edition comes with a blu ray disc with the featurette and a dynamic theme for the XMB.  The third announcement was the mini-series based on the games called Zombrex: Deadrising Sun.  The series will debut on XBL and each episode will be exclusive for a week before it will appear in the official site (http://www.deadrisingsun.com).  The first episode will appear August 4 on XBL and the entire collection will be available with the Zombrex edition of the 360 game.  Deadrising 2 will be coming out September 28.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

 The next Bioware Star Wars game is also the next Star Wars MMO and Bioware has promised a lot for this game.  They have released a lot of information on this game so far including all 8 classes and customizable Starships.  This time they’ve announced starship combat but they did not release any other information trying to keep as much as they can under wraps while still being able to please the crowds.

 The game will feature full voice-over for all dialogue, a separate story for each class, and a morality system just like in their last Star Wars game series, Knights of the Old Republic.  On Friday they hosted a panel for the game called Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Experience.  The first order of business was announcing Starship combat but they said that if you wanted more info on it you would need to pick up the October issue of PC Gamer.  There were slight discussions during Q&A like about how Jedi Knights will be able to specialize in order to have the ability to dual-wield lightsabers while the Jedi Consular class will be able to specialize to use Double-sided Lightsabers.  Star Wars: The Old Republic will be available next year.

 Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions

 The new Spiderman game from Activision will be Shattered Dimensions, a game that crosses over 4 different version of Spiderman into one story.  The game revolves around the tablet of Order and Chaos which stabilizes the different realities before it is shattered and endangers the different worlds while it in the hands of a different enemy of each Spiderman.  Wednesday night they announced the fourth dimension involved in the game: Ultimate Spiderman.  The Ultimate Spiderman uses the black symbiote suit making his part like a hack-and-slash game, while Amazing Spiderman centers around the classical style and involves a lot of over-the-top web-based combat, Spiderman 2099 is based on the series of comics from the early 90’s where it is the year 2099 and this universe revolves around aerial maneuvers and combat, and lastly the Noir universe is a stealth version of the game.

 The game itself was on demo at the Activision booth where you could play a demo with the Noir and Ultimate universe.  The game had a great feel and the transition between the two actually felt like a different game altogether.  The Noir universe felt like playing Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid, while the Ultimate universe played like God of War or Dante’s Inferno.  The game also features first-person combat at certain points which are used to accentuate certain moments like when you first com across carnage.  Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions will be available September 7.

Dead Space 2

 Released back in 2008 Dead Space put a different spin on survival horror games by giving it a sci fi twist.  The series follows Isaac Clarke, an engineer in the future that repairs space stations.  The first game took place in a space station that had “gone dark” out in a dead space area and when he gets aboard he finds that the entire population of the ship has been mutated into monsters called necromorphs and he must stop all of them.  In the Sequel from visceral games, the necromorphs have appeared on another space station on this time Isaac is on it at the time.

The demo starts with Isaac in his old engineer’s suit form the old game and it’s at the beginning of the necromorphs’ invasion.  As the demo progresses Isaac makes his way to the cathedral and he has to fight off hordes of enemies. Afterwards you come across a store where he obtains the new armor as shown in the trailer for the game and he is attacked by a gunship that causes explosive decompression and it causes a quicktime event then the demo ends when he has to climb down a vent to be confronted by a giant Necromorph.

The demo also included another great part of the dead space series: the puzzles. The game brings back the challenging puzzles from the first game by giving you what’s called a stasis puzzle where have to use your stasis projector in order to stop the ship’s artificial gravity and then use the loss of gravity to advance to the next part.  In the first game when the gravity disappeared you had to jump from magnetic surface to magnetic surface, but now you can use boosters to move from place to place.  The demo seemed to keep the same horror feel as the first one which seemed like a huge plus it just seemed not as intense when in a room with a bunch of other people.  Dead Space 2 will be available January 25.

DC Universe Online

            DC Universe came to Comic Con 2 years ago back when it was first announced and they presented a pre-alpha sequence that looked amazing.  Now, 2 years later they have the game setup at the SOE booth again and this time they’ve brought a PVP level showcasing the game’s system.  Unfortunately the demo left much to be desired.  It was a simple 2on2 battle between Nightwing and Batman versus Joker and Harley Quinn.  It seemed a lot like it was the only game SOE had to showcase, which is a huge contrast to how they used to be.  The PVP demo showcased the icon battle where you play as classic characters as opposed to characters you create yourself.  DC Universe is Scheduled for release in November of this year.

Playstation Move

            Sony Computer Entertainment of America had the Playstaion Move up for demo at Comic-Con with 4 games for anyone willing to wait in line to try out.  They had SOCOM 4, The Shoot, The Fight: Lights Out, and Sports Champions.  SOCOM 4 played just like Metroid on the Wii, which was pretty good. The Shoot was a stereotypical rail shooter with powerups that require you to do a 360 spin, or move the controller below the camera in order to give you bullet time or shoot all targets on the screen.  The Fight:

Lights Out is a fist fighting game using the move controllers and calibration with your arms so that it can track the movements in order to beat the living crap out of someone.  Sports Champions is a sports simulation game including: archery, ping pong, volleyball, or sword fighting.  Sports Champions comes out September 7.

Playstation Move

 Sony Computer Entertainment of America had the Playstaion Move up for demo at Comic-Con with 4 games for anyone willing to wait in line to try out.  They had SOCOM 4, The Shoot, The Fight: Lights Out, and Sports Champions.  SOCOM 4 played just like Metroid on the Wii, which was pretty good. The Shoot was a stereotypical rail shooter with powerups that require you to do a 360 spin, or move the controller below the camera in order to give you bullet time or shoot all targets on the screen.  The Fight:   

Capcom Panel: Street Fighter and Beyond

Saturday July 24, 2019 at the Sandiego Comic-con. Capcom had its street fighter and beyond Panel showcasing what’s next for its popular Street Fighter Franchise. Many fans turned out to find out what was next for their favorite 6-button brawler.   As the presentation began the games producer Yoshinori Ono had asked the crowd what they wanted to know about. Many games were called out. One of the more significant titles was Darkstalkers, Capcom’s fighting game focused on famous monsters and other creatures of the night.  to which jokingly  Ono explained that this is a Street Fighter panel and that he won’t be talking about other games. He did However took a picture of the crowd and said he would bring it to the boards attention for further discussion.  well as he continued the news was quite a surprise for fans.  Due to popular demand, Capcom would be unveiling more costumes for download and there would also be various online Tournaments sponsored by the Company and the winners of these tournaments would receive one af a kind PLayer titles they can use for their online experiences.

The next item on the list was that due to the huge popularity of the series, Capcom will also be continuing the Street Fighter III franchise and bring it to the current consoles on the market.

For fans of Handheld systems, it was announced that Super Street Fighter IV will be heading to the Nintendo 3DS and will run very smoothly without any loss in Graphic performance.

Last but Definitely not least. As everyone was waiting for the Q&A period  the panel was suddenly interrupted by the intrusion of none other than Tekkens Producer Katsuhiro Harada. Harada-san partaded down the aisle, wrestling show style complete with music and made his way to the front to confront Ono. as the two of them met they explained they they were both working on a new fighting project. to this the crowd went completely wild.  This was the announce ment of  STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN. The entire room was deafening as they began to show the trailer to the game. and if things couldn’t get better, Ono and Harada decided on showing the audience how far the game was coming along with a fight between the two franchise giants.  Street Fighters’ RYU vs Tekkens’ Kazuyathe game looked very impressive and the crowd couldn’t stay in their seats.  Capcom Has Done it again. Just in Case you’re wondering Namco will Also be doing their version of TEKKEN X STREET FIGHTER in which the game will play more like a Tekken Game.

Xbox Lounge

By Leland Bonaparte

The Hard Rock hotel was host to Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The lounge had a variety of games , but the main attraction was Kinect. I guess the comic nerds and geeks didn’t realize that some of the new games besides Halo Reach was available to play. In the Convention Center everybody lined up to play the almighty Halo, while other got to play games like Hydrophobia, and check out the new multiplayer for Gears of War 3.

While I was drinking and snacking in the lounge, the game Hydrophobia caught my eye. The graphics and the game play looked very interesting , and smooth. The first thing you notice is the controls of the game and it was easy to pick up and play. Hard core gamers should like the intense gameplay and depth of the game.

So if you get chance swing by the Hard Rock Hotel and play some of the other Games besides Halo.

Comic-Con crowds are not the only thing on the move

The crowds wasn’t the only thing that was moving at this years Comic Con, so was Sony. The Playstation move made a guest appearance, and the lines were longs as you expected. Everyone was trying to get their hands on Sony’s new Toy.  Is the move all hype, or the real thing ? Well lets see.

I got to play Socom 4 which the graphics were very life-like. The controls were easy and I was quite surprise on how easy it was. My hands felt real comfortable as I grip the Motion controller. Surprisingly the movement and the actual flow of the game was nice. But we will have to wait to see if the hard-core gamers move in this direction.

Other games they had for the Move was The Fight, Killzone 3,The Sport Champion and The Sly Cooper Collection (which I saw some 3D glasses). When talking to the Playstation people  they will be launching three different bundles: The Sport Champion Move Bundle 399.99, Playstation Move Bundle for 99.99 , and the Move Motion Controller for 49.99. Note that you really don’t need the Move Navigation Controller , so you Dual Shock 3 controller will be ok. Also you will need the Eye Toy to utilize the Move system. The other two bundles comes with the EYE Toy, The Sport Champion Blu Ray, and a demo disc. A target date of September 19 is slated, so get ready to be on the move.

By Leland Bonaparte

New Characters for Marvel Vs Capcom 3 at Comic Con

Trailer for new characters in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

DC Universe Online Demo

By Christopher Sweda

So I sat down with the folks at Sony Online Entertainment and got a personal demo of what was new from their upcoming MMORPG DC Universe Online  or DCUO as all the cool kids call it. I first have to say that I am not an MMORPG guy believe me I’ve tried with all sorts of them WOW, Guild Wars, even some of the free ones thinking money was the issue but I just never took to them. I had seen the game before at E3 2009 but I played as a created character alongside some established Heroes of DC but this time I played as the Joker fighting Batman and Nightwing with Harley Quinn by my side. It was unexpected as when I first was introduced to the game a while back I thought it was only to play in the world of these Iconic figures but a separate play mode will allow you to take control of some of these people and duke it out.

Now, as the demo guy was running me through he mentioned that the idea behind it was that in order to become a legend as a hero or villain you must learn from a legend so that’s where you playing as these Icons comes into play. It also helps you later in the game as you can learn strengths and weaknesses of these characters that you can use to your advantage. Now , you will start off with either Harley Quinn or Robin but you’ll unlock more characters as more PvP is played, which you’ll want to do right off the bat cause really who wants to play as Robin. Speaking of rigt off the bat, Batman is available from jump if you pre-order the game.

The gameplay mode they showed me was called “Play as an Iconic PvP” you had to capture a point and defend it you could set up turrets to help as well. The combat I found to be more interesting to me as it’s more of you performing combos by pushing buttons like an action game as opposed to auto attacking whatever you clicked on. There’s also dodges and blocks that can be performed picking up items and throwing them is also an option which also pushes the pace of the games combat.  It has already fixed one of my issues with MMORPGs in the fighting system. We’ll see if the core gameplay can keep my attention for long or if it will be another notch in my not interested belt of games in general. So far so good though this may be the one that gets me going as it combines two of my favorite things videogames and comics. I’ll keep you comic/ game nerds posted on any further developments.