The inaugural Penny Arcade Expo – East opened its doors for a three-day gaming extravaganza in Boston, but one of the first news out of the conference isn’t likely to be a good news. The webcomic creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins confirmed that there are no plans to release a third episode in the Penny Arcade Adventures downloadable adventure game series.

“There won’t be an Episode 3,” Krahulik announced. “We’re actually not making a third episode of the game.” Holkins went on to note that proceeding on Episode 3 would have interfered with developer Hothead Games’ work on the EA Partners-backed DeathSpank. “They definitely could’ve done both games. I think they could’ve made DeathSpank and Episode 3, but I think Episode 3 would’ve suffered so we’d rather not do it than do it half-assed.”

After years of levying withering criticism of games through the often-acerbic gamer-focused Penny Arcade webcomic, Krahulik and Holkins entered the industry in 2008 with Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Developed in conjunction with Hothead Games, Episode 1 received generally positive reviews. The second installment, released five months later, garnered an equally positive critical reception.

Holkins and Krahulik plan to conclude the game’s storyline as an episodic graphic novel through the game’s Web site. “Our main goal at this point is to make sure that people aren’t left hanging on a narrative side, and to allow Hothead to do the best they can on their project,” Holkins said.

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Estimated release date: June 6, 2010

During the early years of Xbox 360, Crackdown was one of the lesser-known games. It garnered more attention for the included invite to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta than for the game itself.

That’s very unfortunate given that the game was very fun that shows what you can do. The game combines an open-world action formula with a super-addictive progression system that has you seeking out agility orbs up and down buildings to become the ultimate powerful force of destruction. The sequel, developed by Ruffian Games, is due out for release this year,

The Microsoft’s X10 preview event unveiled bits and pieces of details. The demo was divided into two distinct halves. The first showed how some of the new story missions will work, while the second was of the free-form sandbox variety, showing what sort of trouble you can get up to when you cast aside any preconceptions that you’re a force for the greater good. The story mission involved a relatively low-level agent (that is for those who picked up too many of those agility orbs) attempting to infiltrate the stronghold of a group called The Cell. This faction is a sort of militia made up of people who are angry at the Agency and blame them for the zombie freak outbreak that has plagued the city. With the city totally cleaned of gangs after your work in the first game, these two groups are your only enemies in the sequel.

The mission involved regaining a piece of valuable technology that they had stolen from the Agency. To do this, you have to gain entrance to a Cell. It all happen in a shipping yard filled with steel crates and hinted at a couple of the new features you can find in story missions. The first one is the new goal structure that has you going through multiple objectives and sub-objectives. There’s more variety to these objectives. You’d find some storytelling during the missions as well. Another new feature is the mid-mission supply crates. These crates are meant to be a stock container of weapons and vehicles without having to run back to the Agency building.

After the presentation of the game’s mission, the demo moved on to type of activities you can pursue when you take things at your own pace. Crackdown 2 offers a day-night cycle that dramatically changes the world when darkness hits. The zombies take over the city at night thus turning the streets into an ocean of shambling monsters. Ruffian producer James Cope, who was manning the controller for the demo, made it a point to hop into a car and quite simply plow through this wave of freaks. They bounced off the front fender like pinballs. As the game progresses, you will eventually reach the freaks’ underground lairs and fight them their own turf, where you might find some more-powerful enemies. As an example, Microsoft Game Studios lead designer John Noonan hinted at the idea of former superpower agents becoming infected. It’s one thing scarier than a guy who can climb skyscrapers but scarier if it’s a guy who can climb skyscrapers and has a thirst of human flesh.

After violating every traffic rule known to man, the demo moved on to some high-flying antics. One of the new pieces of equipment available when you progress to a fairly high level is the wing suit. This beauty effectively turns you into a flying squirrel when you leap from a tall building. You can glide, swoop, or simply dive-bomb straight to the earth below. Different-colored contrails come off your limbs to denote whether you’re delaying or accelerating the effects of gravity. As in the first game, you can strike the ground with a devastating thud and clear out a large radius of enemies.

The team also managed to get their hands on the new agency helicopter, which looks like an average helicopter until you stop to realize that, like the rest of the agency vehicles, its look and function will drastically improve as your driving level ranks up. We can’t wait to see what else Crackdown 2 will offer in terms of the leveling up and agility orb system.

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Created by: Ubisoft Montreal
Type: Historic Action Adventure
Date of release: January 28, 2010
ESRB: Mature

The disappointing and super schemed add on doesn’t improve as a follow up to Assassin’s Creed I. Assassin’s Creed II takes away the thrill of its predecessor mainly due to its poorly paced and messy plot and game play.

Superior points:

The beautiful Caterina Sforza finally gets her due.

Some great new dialogue and voice acting

Weak points:

The “special” memory is pointless

Destroys the main game’s narrative pace

Several annoying contrivances

It is not difficult to notice the two missing sequences directly preceding the finale of Assassin’s Creed II. The Battle of Forli is the first of two planned add-ons. It is meant to fill in the obvious break. The historic action adventure game is not that bad for a price of $ 4.00 or 320 Microsoft points. However, the added missions in part 2 of the game don’t embody the spirit and essence of the original game and seem tossed to earnest fans starving for new content. The shooter starts with the charming and deceptive Caterina Sforza whose earlier appearance was very short-lived. The overall delivery of Assassin’s Creed II feels hastily done and thrown together making it a forgettable chapter in an otherwise unforgettable game.

Read the review and Assassin’s Creed II spoilers below:

For those of you who just started to play the game, you should know that you won’t be able to access the new content not until you reach the end of the game. The new chapter happens after a dominant revelation that completed sequence 11. There shows the too clear chronological gap here, but that emotional leap of faith was a very suitable end to the definitive chapter and supplied a delicate transition to the game’s great finale. The new content packed with narrative pace along with the opening scene showing essential artifact as a major spoiler that makes the game’s ending less spectacular. You might not mind this gives away if you have already finished the game. In this case, you will enjoy the romantic tension between Caterina and Ezio, who find Forli under attack by a couple of brothers who are into more than merely the joy of combat. I find the dialogue about a missing toe and finger, well the whole limb for that matter, between Ezio and black-robed monk particularly funny.

The weakness of the game is the early climax of the plot resulting to the rest of the game to be plain rather than a blast.

The initial third of the add-on focuses on the battle scenes that pit you, along with Caterina and Niccolo Machiavelli, versus a big number of sword-swinging foes. The big scale combats are fun but are not quite as challenging as expected. The simple feat of positioning yourself behind a busy attacker and to fatally stab him at the back with a single thrust is not particularly challenging. One thing about the visual chaos is that gets rid of the joy of counter kills, crowding up the screen and keeping you from witnessing Ezio’s sleek murder moves. The rest of the memories comprise ACII missions such as rescues, chases and more battles. The missions don’t proudly show off the sleekness of the main game.

“Special memory”

An addition to the game is the “special memory”, which is nothing more than an out-of-context flight on the flying machine. You will find no mission or goal associated to your flight. I don’t find the machine to hold a key importance to the game. It is another contrivance in a game that obviously doesn’t need more. You might want to forget your hopes to pad your game score since The Battle of Forli doesn’t offer any new achievement.

If you were at least hoping to pad your gamer score, you’ll want to note that The Battle of Forli doesn’t offer any new achievements. This feature does not come to be unsurprising as no new locations are available to explore or weapons to display.

As a conclusion, Assassin’s Creed II is a great game for its fans. The various bits and parts fit together into one cohesive whole. It intends to fill a narrative gap, but ironically The Battle of Forli is out of place. The interesting character of the tough Caterina, and the awkward reference to her reproductive ability, is fun to play. On the other hand, the game play is a medley of standard missions sewn together without careful-thought cohesion. The Battle of Forli II offers another way to go back to an excellent game but unsuccessfully gain a spot for the must-have Xbox live arcade game.

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When you are in the mood for something loud and fun, The 40th Day is the game for you. It provides a brash, satisfying action with the same, shallow appeal as a hit.

Play the Army of Two: The 40th Day with your buddy and blast your way through enemies care of customized weapons. The gunplay and some awkward movements of the game are solid and satisfying. If you are into teamwork to complete goals then this game is for you (and your buddy)!

Release date: January 12, 2010

Good points

• Brutal, satisfying gunplay

• Engaging weapon customization

• Diverse, detailed environments

• Good implementation of light cooperative tactics

• Surprising replay value.

Bad points

• Short campaign

• Often laggy online play

• Awkwardness in movement

• Weird dabbling on morality.

A combination of superb game play, humor and action-packed game play made Army of Two an instant success. EA Montreal, its maker, knew just what its entire fan base need to satisfy their expectations.

For those who had played the first game, it is obvious that the main game play mechanics haven’t drastically changed despite some major improvements. The key to this game is the cooperative game play. The 40th day pushes the trend of weapon customization and tactical strategies at the same time exploring something new to the series, moral choices.

Army of Two: the 40th Day sees the return of a more improved and better weapon customization system. You earn new items by completing objectives in the game. Find weapon parts lying in the street or heavily guarded supply crates. Aim to kill guards nearby to gain access to crates filled with parts of weapon and cash. The fundamental part to the game play is to constantly upgrade your inventory. The game won’t dictate when you’re able to make changes. You can now access the weapon customization menu whenever you want to, given you are not in combat.

Tactical decisions made in the game must be carefully weighed since it has a direct impact on your team and long-term consequences. For an instance, a series of negative decisions can lead to a character hindering your access to a useful area. Due to the cold-hearted nature of mercenaries, you can find yourself torn between a unique piece of item and ethical choice. Every scripted decision has an animation that shows the consequences of your action either positive or negative. Aim to save civilians from the deadly hands of the enemy to reap bonus morality points as well as weapons parts and extra cash. When these civilians die, you are left with only negative points.

Teamwork

Learn how to think of decisions beneficial for you and partner. You can find a friendship status at the bottom left of the pause menu. Get to earn a friendly hero label when you free hostages, stick with right choices, and play a game of rock-paper-scissors with your partner on a frequent basis. Don’t overdo high five or hug too much or else you would be labeled as “ambiguous or uncertain heroes”. Labels can be changed if you decide to slap or punch your partner for no apparent reason at all or because of the moral choices he makes. The game is interesting thanks to the new morality system but could be limited than you might expect it to be. Watch out when the entire level or chapter resets itself at the start of the next chapter. You can make wrong choices if you want to then make it up in the next one.

See a more vigorous multiplayer feature in the new Army of Two: the 40th Day. Three modes can be played with twelve players namely Warzone (a returning mode found in the first game), Control (two groups battle it out to seize and hold control points) and Co-op death match. The fourth mode is called “extraction”, a survival mode with an emphasis on cooperative play but is only available to players who pre-ordered the game with EA but will be soon made available to everyone as DLC a month following its release.

Visual effects and sounds

The 40th Day shows an enormous improvement compared to its release. The plot is limited in Shanghai unlike the diverse locations in the first game. When you play the character of Rios and Salem in the chaotic city, you witness the transformation of Shanghai from an urban paradise into a wrecked place. Play your way through highly detailed indoor and outdoor settings. See stunning Zoo and Market levels as well as other subtle touches found in new melee attacks and the characters flipping their masks up from time to time. Visit the game’s official website to customize their facemask and armor and use them in game. The visual enhancements may seem apparent but the game suffers from camera issues evidently seen during fooling around animations and some texture pop in but is minimal.

The voice behind the characters Salem (Nolan North) and Rios (Jonathan Adams) did a brilliant job. The humor is amusing especially when the two protagonists talk but some people can find the humor irritating when it becomes repetitive. Aside from that, the sounds of the environmental build of the city are outstanding most especially the sound effects of the weapons. The better your weapon gets, the better the way your weapon sounds.

The weak points of the game include strange comments on morality during the short campaign but can be easily forgotten by the brutal action of the plot. There is a lag when you do play on the lively online game by is not enough to stop you to enjoy the brutal gunplay of The Army of Two game.

Campaign

Expect to see six chapters of the campaign. The expected time to complete the game is less than 10 hours depending on the skill level. Replayability is what makes the 40th Day different from few other shooters. It is better to play the game alone then replaying it with your buddy (human, of course). Multiplayer function sets it unique and more fun to play. You will be logging even more hours especially in the Extraction mode, available to those who pre-ordered the game. If you haven’t, check it out after a month.

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The sequel has the force of Earth, Bydo Empire, and Granzela army locked in a hex grid war.

R-Type Command sequel is coming at you on October 27 to Japanese retailers. Irem is preparing a downloadable version scheduled to come out on the same day. A boxed copy is priced 5,040 yen ($53) while the downloadable release goes for 3,800 yen ($40).

Technorati Tags: 2d Shooter, irem, new release, r-type tactics II operation bitter chocolate, shmup

About Shadow Complex

Shadow Complex takes place in the compelling universe of Empire based on the best selling novel of Orson Scott Card. It offers a fresh twist on classic side-scroller action by showcasing an original single-player adventure that develops across a range of non-linear levels. Play the character of a lost hiker, Jason Fleming, who discovers a mysterious underground military complex. He and his girlfriend, Claire, accidentally stumble upon a rogue paramilitary group named the Restoration. It then becomes apparent that the faction’s intent is to start a chain of events that will cause America to collapse into a civil war. Mistaken as a government agent, the Restoration captures Claire. This event initially fueled Jason’s drive to find justice moving on to discovers the magnitude of what the sinister offshoot has planned. As the game continues, Jason acquires many high-tech “toys” the Restoration is developing, and eventually becomes a super-powered engine of destruction.

Watch out for Shadow Complex out soon on August 31.

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While most top-down shooters wind their way to Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade, Raiden Fighters Aces reaches its fans on disc and store shelves. Raiden Fighters Aces on disc has few advantages over its XBLA equivalent, especially the full set of 1,000 Achievement points and a sturdy set of options for tweaking the game play.

Raiden franchise reliably reborn all three Raiden Fighters games for play on Xbox 360. Among the additions on this new package are online leader boards and a replay save option. Its technical limitation, however, is the classic visuals and sound can be improved.

The three games in one package contain little difference. Each of the three has a good selection of ships that carries their own stats and special weapons. It’s a good deal of dodging bullet among all the chaos that greets you during the start of the game.

Power-ups can be grabbed to increase your firing power or to add slave ships a la Galaga. This game is tailored like the rest of all top-down shooters. It dwells more on memorizing enemy patterns than any other skill set. The game can be brief to play but poses a big challenge of beating enemies without continuing to get all of the Achievements.

Each game can be played co-operatively and only offline with another player. I find it rather annoying that this two-player game can get rather hectic after adding a second bullet-spewing ship onto the screen. Come to think of it, any missing multiplayer features of any Xbox Live multiplayer features fails to live up to my expectations.

You may find the whole concept of the Xbox Live integration a bit unusual. It’s true that there are leader boards; however, you have to select the Xbox Live tab on the main menu to play a game where your scores will be registered. You’ll then find a more restrictive option set to keep everyone on the same playing field. .Even if you play under the default settings on the normal “Game Play” tab you’ll find that your scores aren’t uploaded to the leader boards.

Another oddity to the Xbox 360 integration is the saved videos option. You can only save a video shared online while playing an Xbox Live game. You can save videos in other modes but can only be viewed locally.

Despite these minor setbacks, Raiden Fighters Aces manages to offer an impressive set of options and features. It comes fully equipped with plenty of sliders and filters exist to get the visuals just right to what you need. It includes fully customizable controls and the ability to rotate the screen thus you are able to maximize your widescreen television.

Take a trip down memory lane when you get your copy of this top down shooter. Raiden Fighters Aces has the budget price and good assortment of options leave little to be desired. Be mindful of its limitation though. It lacks the feature of online multi-player. It is a three in one game bundle of arcade games which the actual content is still rather slim. If you’re looking for an impressive visual showcase, you should go look somewhere else.

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Microsoft recently held a press conference in Japan showing the growing local support for its Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade service. It is quite a surprise to know that Square Enix , who came away with the most interesting developments of the show, had nothing to do with Final Fantasy or RPGs in general. As it was once dubbed as Project Cube, the minimalist effect of the game makes it interesting to play.  Sad to say, we will have to wait for the sequel of Einhander.

Watch a clip of Square Enix here.

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Download Valkyrie Sky Closed Beta here.

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