1P Start

At this summer’s E3 Aliens vs. Predator was shown off at Sega’s booth. It shows a lot of promise with impressive graphics and the standard three story modes found in previous Aliens vs. Predator games, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

As excited as I am about a new Aliens vs. Predator game, I was really looking forward to Aliens: Colonial Marines game. I love Predators and all, but I like the straight up fight between humans and Aliens without the intervention of the super hunter Predators. According to 1up.com the game from Gearbox Studios is still coming out… someday. Aliens vs. Predator is due to come out sometime in 2010 (we really have to wait a year? Lame!) and Aliens: Colonial Marines will come out sometime after that. I just want to put it out there that I hate waiting. It’s not like I’m getting any younger here.

For those of you who need some Aliens action on the go, there’s a DS version in the works by a Developer who is not Gearbox. I don’t know how excited I could get about an Aliens game on the DS, except if it was a turn based stratagy game. Oh please let it be a turned based strategy game! Okay, I’m sure it won’t be but I at least had to beg a little bit. You can’t fault me for trying, can you?

While Rockband may not have a true sequel coming out (the Beatles game is kind of an extension), Guitar Hero 5 eventual release is building up steam. Now the full list of artists is available who will have at least one song in the game. We’re still waiting on the list of songs, but this will do for now.

There are a lot of artists who have already seen their work in a music game, but there are a few here worth noting that we haven’t gotten before. I’m particularly excited about the Queen and Bowie team up. You know it’s going to be “Under Pressure”, it’s not like they did many more songs than that.

Full list after the break:

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I’ve got the perfect combination of cheapness and unemployment to make getting new games a fantasy. However, I stopped at the Sears Grand in town that’s going out of business. It’s really no surprise that Sears couldn’t turn a K-Mart into a successful business, but I digress. All of their games are going for 40% off and they had a rather good selection. Here’s what I picked up, despite the fact that I shouldn’t be spending any money:

Tom Clancy’s HAWX - PS3 - Original Price $60, I paid $36

I’ve heard good things about this game and I’ve heard bad things. I’m a nut for airplane combat and this game looked gorgeous and played pretty well in the demo version that I tried out. For 36 bucks it was impossible to pass up.

Advance Wars Days of Ruin - Nintendo DS - Original Price $30, I paid $18

I love turn based strategy games. I hate that RTS games have almost replaced them on the gaming landscape, but there’s still some good ones out there. I haven’t played any of the Advance Wars games and always heard good things about them. This game is pretty good, but it is a little too simplistic for my taste and the characters constantly blabbing back and forth is a little annoying. Still, it’s got a lot of cool things going for it and the dialogue is pretty entertaining at times.

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise - Xbox 360 - Original Price $30, I paid $18

I got this for the wife. Totally for her. Not for me at all…

I’ve been living under a gaming rock. I had no idea that Rock Band was coming out in portable form, but it is under the title of Rock Band Unplugged. Now the interesting part is that the set list has nine songs that are exclusive to the game for a limited time, meaning they should become available on regular Rock Band. What are they?

Audioslave - “Gasoline”
Black Tide - “Show Me the Way”
Freezepop - “Less Talk More Rokk”
Tenacious D - “Rock Your Socks”
3 Doors Down - “Kryptonite”
Alice in Chains - “Would?”
Blink 182 - “What’s My Age Again”
Jackson 5 - “ABC”
Jethro Tull - “Aqualung”

Yeah, there’s some real must haves in here. You can’t go wrong with Tenacious D, though there are other songs I’d rather play by them. I’m really excited for “Would” and yes, I’d love “ABC” just for the casual crowd fun factor. As far as the actual portable version of Rock Band? Meh. I prefer my pretend instruments to be large and attached to a huge TV, thank you.

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I finally got around to downloading the demo to Killzone 2 after an extreme bout of laziness. First of all I need to get something out of the way, does anyone else find having to download these huge demos that take forever and then having to wait until they install highly annoying? No, I didn’t think so.

Anway, my Killzone 2 experience is a little biased mostly because I never played the first game. I don’t know anything other than there’s space Nazis and I pretty much got the impression that was all I needed to know about the sequel.

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Sad news for Aliens fans, Sega has canceled an Aliens RPG that was in the works by California-based developer Obsidian. This is super sad news because about twenty people were laid off at Obsidian. Plus, an Aliens based RPG would be awesome, especially coming from a developer that had experience making a solid RPG. In case you can’t remember, Obsidian made Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II. The title was due out on the PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

More frightening is that it’s rumored that the Gearbox developed Aliens first person shooter could be in trouble as well.

Don’t lose all hope Aliens fans! Sega has also announced a new Aliens vs. Predator game that’s due out in 2010. When they announced the new game they are quoted as saying, “…strategically updated the release of the other upcoming Aliens titles currently in development within its portfolio” whatever the hell that means.

Now this is all rumor still because neither company has confirmed it, but when has this stopped any kind of gaming blog from reporting it? If this is all true it’s a terrible shame for Sega. They have made crap for so long that when they have a chance to produce games based on some awesome intellectual properties, the economy collapses and they are stuck with no money and no consumer confidence.

Thanks to: Kotaku

I think I’m the only person that doesn’t own Call of Duty World at War. I decided to sit this one out based only on the fact that I only have so much time in the day for online shooters and a trip back to World War II didn’t really appeal to me. Did I make the right call? Doesn’t look like it as a lot of people have been playing the hell out of it.

If you’re one of those people and you’ve enjoyed killing Nazi zombies and blowing away Asian people, there will be four new maps coming out that should help to extend your fun!

- Nightfire: This map takes place in a burning Berlin at night
- Station: This map is in a subway.
- Knee Deep: This map is set on the Pacific island of Peleliu.
- Verruckt: This is a map for the Nazi Zombie level set in an insane asylum.

…are not on this blog. Instead, they will be in the March 2009 issue of GamePro. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “But Paul, nobody reads GamePro!” Well you’d be wrong, GamePro is an amazing magazine (please hire me).

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I just saw the trailer for a new Blood Bowl due out this year and I couldn’t help but get a little excited for Blood Bowl sporting goodness:

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So my friend and I (who shall remain nameless) decide that we want to play Resistance 2 co-op with another friend of ours on line. I get my PS3 running and quickly find myself pissed off. You see, it took us at least fifteen minutes to figure out how to start a private room, invite our friends into the room, and then have the friend join. Why? Because it’s needlessly difficult.

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So a news item is being carried on the internets that has me scratching my head a bit. For some reason it’s news that there are no plans by Bethesda to change the fact that Fallout 3 players can’t continue playing after they beat the main quest.

Okay, I get that it’s odd that Xbox 360 users and (presumably) PC owners can keep playing. But still, who doesn’t save before they beat a game? It’s not like you don’t know that the ending is coming up. It’s fairly obvious when you’re on the main quest and not. It’s not like Fallout 3 is the first game that wouldn’t let you continue after beating it. Maybe this is just me, but I’d have to put this into the “not newsworthy enough to actually focus one entire post about” category.

Oh shit, I just did.

Indiana Jones was due to have a multi-platform adventure in Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, but it looks like those plans seem to have been canceled for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The good news for Wii and PSP owners is that the Indiana Jones game seems to be still coming out on those systems. It also might appear on the PS2. Before you rejoice too much, this really isn’t a good sign for the game. It’s never a good sign when plans are scaled back like this. Still, the trailer looks pretty good even though it doesn’t seem to show any actual game play.

Indiana Jones hasn’t had a very good reputation when it comes to games, so this thing is either going to rock or completely suck.

Since I ran out of interesting news today, here’s an update on my progress on Fallout 3. I’m still addicted, but not as much as I was previously. I suppose it can be chalked up to the fact that you can only look in so many desks, file cabinets, and boxes before the process becomes tiring. I will say that the exploration and side quests have really kept my interest though, considering I’ve spend over fifty hours on the game and I haven’t even really begun the main quest.

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It’s been awhile since I posted any Rock Band news that was worth a damn, but today is different. Harmonix has stated that there will be no new Rock Band game in ‘09. Why? Well do we really need one? The last game was a slight upgrade with new songs. Harmonix said, “…the annual cycle places limits on the choices you can make as a developer.” Well no crap. Would you rather have a slight update every year or a really damned cool game that gives you enough reason to drop 60 bucks every few years? It’s not like new songs don’t come out every single week. So spend about 60 bucks on DLC and that’s your personal Rock Band 3.

Don’t get scared though, it doesn’t mean that we’ll never see a Rock Band 3. It’s just not officially in development right now.

Thanks to: 1up.com

Any user of the Sony PS3’s or Nintendo Wii’s web browser will tell you that while it is a really nice option to surf the web through the system, it can be a bit difficult at times to navigate through sites like YouTube. The mega-huge video sharing site has realized this, so YouTube has launched a Beta test of it’s console friendly version of it’s service.

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