It’s hard to believe that we’re already in the third quarter of 2009. Usually, it’s the winter season that brings the best out of game publishers (I’m sure that will be the case this year as well), but we’ve been given quite a treat this summer with open-world blockbuster titles like Infamous, Prototype and Red Faction Guerilla. Now let’s take a look at what is in store for us over the next three months.
The Beatles: Rock Band
Playstation 3, Wii, Xbox 360
The game represents the first time fans will be able to experience The Beatles’ musical career for themselves. From the early touring days in 1963 Liverpool to the immortal, final performance on the Apple Corps rooftop, fans can follow in the band’s footsteps as they traverse the globe during the height of Beatlemania. Adding to the experience is the introduction of three-part vocal harmonies to game play, allowing gamers to revel in the unparalleled vocal stylings of the Fab Four. Beatles fans will also be thrilled to hear previously unreleased authentic voice recordings from John, Paul, George and Ringo chatting between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road more than four decades ago. The game begins during the band’s earliest days at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. Gamers then travel across the Atlantic to experience the band’s unforgettable 1964 performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the sold-out concert at New York’s Shea Stadium in 1965, and conclude at The Beatles’ memorable concert at Budokan in Tokyo, Japan in 1966.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Playstation 3, PC, Xbox 360
In Batman: Arkham Asylum, the player assumes the role of Batman as he delivers The Joker to Arkham Asylum. There, the imprisoned super-villains have set a trap and an immersive combat gaming experience unfolds. X-Men Origins: Wolverine proved earlier this year that film and comic book franchises can translate well into video games. With an original script penned by Emmy Award-winning Batman writer Paul Dini, the game brings the universe of DC Comics’ detective to life with stunning graphics. Batman: Arkham Asylum offers players the chance to battle Gotham’s worst villains with Batman’s physical and psychological strength in a graphically distinct and story-driven game. It’s supposed to be intense and atmospheric, with just as much focus on the Dark Knight’s detective skills as his abilities in mortal combat (pun intended). With an all-star cast of villains, including The Riddler, Penguin, Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul, Batman is sure to have his hands full.
alo 3: ODST
Xbox 360
Halo 3: ODST returns players to familiar ground on a vital, top-secret mission. The gripping story, cooperative campaign and new multiplayer content is sure to keep fans of the franchise happy. The new game brings the perspective of an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) squad to the struggle between Humans and the Covenant. Follow the story of the legendary ODSTs as they drop into the ruined city of New Mombasa, looking for clues behind the Covenant’s catastrophic attack on the city. Players will play from the perspective of all the squad members of the ODST, who are known for their courage, valor and at times, insanity – they are among the fiercest of UNSC soldiers, priding themselves on being the first unit deployed into hostile situations. While not as large or supernaturally gifted as their Spartan comrades, these Hell Jumpers more than compensate with their ferocious attitudes and unwavering nerve. All the traditional features of Halo 3 multiplayer will be included in the new game, including full-featured integration with the Forge map editor.
Operation Flashpoint 2:
Dragon Rising
Taking gamers as close to war as they’ll ever want to get, this game is the much anticipated return of the genre-defining military conflict simulator. Set to deliver the total combat experience, Flashpoint: Dragon Rising challenges players to survive the chaos and rapidly evolving situations of modern warfare in a new contemporary theatre. Players experience the intensity, diversity and claustrophobia of a modern conflict from the unique perspectives of an infantry marine, a helicopter pilot, a Special Forces officer or a tank commander, each engaged against the full force of the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army on a scale never previously experienced in a military action title. Gameplay simulates an immense conflict between advanced forces and provides unparalleled scope with different military disciplines, vehicles and equipment for players to utilise.
Need For Speed: Shift
Since it’s EA, all conceivable
platforms!
This brings a true driver’s experience to some of the world’s most iconic racing tracks, including the storied Brand’s Hatch in the UK. The game also features the largest roster of high-performance cars in Need for Speed history including race cars such as the Pagani Zonda F, Porsche 911 GT2 and Lotus Elise. Players are thrust into the loud, intense, and athletic experience of racing a car from the driver’s perspective through the combination of perception based G-forces, the hyper reality of the cockpit view, and the all-new brutally disorienting crash dynamic. Need for Speed SHIFT will feature an accurate, accessible physics-based driving model that allows the player to feel every impact, every change of track surface and every last bit of grip as you push yourself to the edge. Now, there’s the only problem of the last three games in the NFS series being total bollocks. Let’s hope the guys at Black Box studios can do something about SHIFT.
—Videep@gmail.com
5 Games to play at work
Hidden Expedition: Titanic
As a scuba diver exploring the underwater wreck of the Titanic, it’s your job to find the various items on your list before your air runs out. This is no easy task because each room you search is actually a composite picture made up of many objects layered on top of each other, resulting in some items being “buried” inside other objects, while others hide in plain view, so obvious that you just can’t see them. Adding to the pressure is a time limit, and the fact that each wrong guess costs you precious oxygen.
Peggle
It is played by shooting balls at a screen full of different
colored pegs, and any peg it hits will disappear after the ball drops off the bottom of the screen and out of play. While
hitting any color peg will increase your score, knocking out all the orange ones is how you clear the level (causing rainbows and stars to shoot across the screen). Choose your shots
carefully because when you’re out of balls, the game is over.
Bejweled 2
To play, you match gems of various colors and shapes into identical groups of three. Doing so causes that triplet to disappear and the other gems to shift down the grid to fill its place, with new random gems filling in the gap at the top. The trick is that you can only move a gem one space, either vertically or horizontally, and you can only do that if the move results in an identical trio.
Minesweeper
The granddaddy of workday timewasters, it is popular
with cubicle-dwellers the world over for its sheer simplicity. Click any box on the grid to figure out where mines might lie; if your click uncovers a “1” then you know that there’s a mine in an adjacent box. If that number is a “2,” that means there are two mines nearby, and so on. But if your click
uncovers a mine — boom! — the game is over.
Tetris
In the movie “Office Space,” a cult favorite about on-the-job
slacking, the lead character Peter Gibbons avoids work by playing this. The object is simple: Fit blocks into corresponding slots. The blocks, which tumble down from the top of the screen, can be
rotated and moved around for the best fit. If you organise them correctly, these blocks will form a solid horizontal line and then disappear. But do it wrong and these blocks will stack up. When the blocks reach the top of the screen, the game is over.
— www.msnbc.com
