The shooter genre, both first person and third, has become increasingly stagnate and over saturated with perennial copy and paste titles. It has become bad enough to turn a once avid shooter fan away. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is the veracious second breathe this gamer needed. The game is a blend of a few notable titles: It borrows some of Gears of War’s cover mechanics, Socom’s panned-out third-person camera, and Battlefield 3′s objective-based gameplay. It grabs the best aspects of those series and incorporates it with the already established Ghost Recon universe superbly.
Word has come via Siliconera.com that the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is coming to North American Vitas this June.
And, second time around, it’s still missing the original Metal Gear Solid, and Peace Walker is off the table as well.
Doesn’t Konami see what a golden opportunity this is? By including those two games they’d make the Vita version the ultimate Metal Gear Solid collection.
Maybe they’re saving Peace Walker HD for a separate SKU, but that would bite. Peace Walker was part of the PS3 and X360 package, why can’t it be on the Vita as part of the same basic package? It would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? Especially since Transfarring has been confirmed between the the portable and console collections. Maybe they just can’t fit all the games onto the same Vita cartridge. That’s a reasonable excuse, I guess, but it just seems super odd that they’re leaving Peace Walker out of the Vita equation altogether. It’s not even available on the Vita’s online store.
Lets get this out of the way right now: I’m not a fan of strategy games. I’m also not a fan of RPGs outside of Chrono Trigger, Y’s, and Lunar: The Silver Star Saga. One, naturally, would think that combining the two game genres into one would produce something so atrocious that I would want to touch it. That’s sound. That’s logical. It’s also quite wrong.
It’s quite fitting that NetherRealm Studios’ 2011 Mortal Kombat was simply entitled Mortal Kombat; no subtitle, no number. The PS3 and Xbox 360 release returned the franchise to its roots with hyper-violence, accessible gameplay, eerie atmosphere, and solid (if not the most technical) fighting. A deep roster, excellent graphics, tons of unlockables, and a mindblowing number of gameplay modes made Mortal Kombat the most beloved Mortal Kombat II–and the best in the series, period. Now Mortal Kombat’s on Sony’s PS Vita platform. The textures are a bit rough, and some characters have some truly cheapo moves, but very little was lost in tthe transition.
Slant Six Games did a great job filling in the blanks with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. The single-player campaign is a bit short, but the story telling is magnificent. The online multiplayer is good when it works and the four modes are fun to pass time with some friends. When it doesn’t, though, it feels rushed and unfinished.
When Capcom announced that one of my favorite fighters–Marvel vs. Capcom 2– was making its way to the iPhone and iPad I was overwhelmed with joy. But the excitement wore off seconds after I launched the app.
It’s been two months since the PS Vita’s American release–where are we exactly? I love my PS Vita, but it’s been collecting dust. Why is that? Why am I not using my PS Vita as much as I did a few weeks ago? Is something wrong with it, or is something wrong with me? The Vita is suffering from what I now dub this as, “why the hell did I even buy this thing in the first place?” syndrome.
Final Freeway 2R is Outrun. Or, to avoid any legal ramifications, it’s a lovingly-crafted Outrun clone. An homage if you will. Just as Outrun set the arcade racing standard in 1986, Final Freeway 2R does on the iOS platform in 2012. It’s just that damned good.
What happens when you take a well respected member of the fighting game community and give him the freedom to make his own game? Skullgirls happens. Mike Zaimont (Mike Z) and the folks over at Reverge Labs have taken their time (a seemingly long time) to create a deep fighter that almost anyone can jump into. Skullgirls follows eight female fighters and their quest to obtain the mystical Skull Heart that allows the possessor to ask for wishes, but at a disturbing cost. Each characters fighting style is completely unique, yet those accustomed to fighters should find it easy to pick up any of the cast members.
I was tuned into NYC’s Hot 97 the night that Funkmaster Flex unveiled “Glaciers of Ice” over the radio airwaves. The collective hip hop populace lost it. Not only was the track absolute fire, but we were throughly convinced that RZA sampled Castlevania to create what sounded like an organ from hell. RZA is known for digging through the crates, grabbing obscure samples, chopping them up, and sometimes distorting them. This is crew that referenced anime and martial arts flicks, so this had to be a Castlevania sample, right?
