Halo 4 E3 2012 Stage Demo

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The official Stage Demo for Halo 4 shown earlier today at E3 is now officially online at Halo Waypoint.  It's not on their YouTube Channel yet so I can't post the actual video, so until then you'll need to view it on their official site here.

It's a great demonstration, actually, and it's got my attention.  The look and feel is certainly Halo, save for the needless retcon of Cortana's activation date.

I'll post the Stage Demo here once it's properly up on their YouTube Channel.

Halo 4 Spartan Ops, War Games Gameplay Videos, and Infinity Hub Overview

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During E3, 343 Industries released a few cool gameplay videos for Halo 4, most notably Spartan Ops and War Games gameplay which you can view here and here or below.











Personally, Spartan Ops looks pretty bland to me, but War Games looks like tried-and-true Halo multiplayer with some nice modern updates.  Should be fun.

The UNSC Infinity will also serve as the Multiplayer Hub for Halo 4, and you can check out a video that explains it all here or below.






I must confess, the overall gameplay being shown of Halo 4 is quite strong, and my interest in the title has been re-peaked.

Dead Space: Catalyst Announced

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The next novel in the Dead Space franchise has been announced, and you can check out the official release from our friends at Tor Books below:









Tor Books and Visceral GamesTeam Up on a New Novel, Dead Space: Catalyst, Set in theDead Space Universe
Edgar Award Finalist and Horror Sensation B.K. Evenson to Pen Second Novel in the Series

New York, NY– June 18, 2012 - Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC—the largest publisher of science fiction in the world—and Visceral Games™, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), today announced Dead Space™: Catalyst,the second novel based on the award-winningDead Space videogame franchise. Dead Space: Catalyst will be published worldwide on October 2, 2012.
Dead Space: Catalyst takes place three hundred years in the future, where mankind is tampering with the dangerous alien technology gleaned from the Black Marker, an ancient alien artifact discovered on Earth centuries earlier. Hoping to end resource constraints that threaten to make mankind extinct, the urgency sinks the already unscrupulous EarthGov to new lows. At this early stage, the Marker threat is just appearing – and is maybe even contained – except if it finds the catalyst it so desperately seeks. Two brothers, one with a special but broken mind, the other forever conflicted by the impossible chore of keeping him out of trouble, cross paths with EarthGov and the Markers at this critical juncture and forever change the course of the Marker outbreak.
B. K. Evenson is the award-winning author of the new novelImmobility (out from Tor Books on April 10, 2012),Last Days, voted best horror novel of 2009 by the American Library Association,and The Open Curtain, a 2006 Edgar Award finalist andTime Out New York best book of the year.
Since the series debut in 2008,Dead Space has been one of EA’s top rated wholly-owned intellectual properties. With close to 100 industry awards and an average critic score of 89*,Dead Space is loved by videogame fans the world over. In 2009, EA launchedDead Space Extraction, a prequel to the originalDead Space that expanded the fiction and brought the franchise to the Wii™. In 2011, EA launchedDead Space 2 where hero Isaac Clarke returned for another heart-pounding adventure and was heralded as one of the top games of 2011 by Seth Schiesel from theNew York Times and has received over 70 scores of 90+ from top gaming outlets such asOfficial Xbox Magazine, Playstation: The Official Magazine and Game Informer.
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* According to Gamerankings.com and Metacritic.com
About Tor BooksTor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books. Founded in 1980, Tor annually publishes what is arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher.  In 2002, Tor launched Starscape, an imprint dedicated to publishing quality science fiction and fantasy for young readers, including books by critically acclaimed and award winning authors such as Cory Doctorow, Orson Scott Card, and David Lubar. Between an extensive hardcover and trade-softcover line, an Orb backlist program, and a stronghold in mass-market paperbacks, books from Tor have won every major award in the SF and fantasy fields, and the company has been named Best Publisher 24 years in a row in theLocus Poll, the largest consumer poll in SF.

Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut Release Date Announced

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The ending for Mass Effect 3 sparked a significant outrage amongst the gaming community, with many feeling it was too simple and weak to properly finish their Shepard's story.  To help rectify this, BioWare will be releasing a DLC add-on which expands upon the game's ending, free of charge.

This Tuesday, June 26th, gamers will be able to download the Extended Cut for Mass Effect 3.

Weighing in at about 1.9 GB, the add-on will feature additional cinematic scenes and epilogue scenes for the game's ending.  In order to experience the Extended Cut for existing characters who have already completed the game, however, you'll need to load a save from before the attack on the Cerberus Base.

That irks me, as that's far enough back in the story where it'll take me several hours of playtime to complete, and I simply can't invest that kind of time in a game I've already completed.  While I'll see the Extended Cut on subsequent playthroughs, I'm hugely disappointed that I won't be able to with my primary Shepard.  Hugely.  Disappointed.

You can find out full details about Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut here.

Mortal Kombat (Feature Film) Review

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Originally released back in the summer of 1995 towards the height of the franchise's popularity, Mortal Kombat was a campy film even by '90's standards.  I saw the flick in theatres and thought it was alright, and I watched it on TV once a few years later.  Through all the time between then and now I've never bothered to view it since, but a few weeks back I saw it had been added to Zune Marketplace.  So, with my renewed addiction to the franchise thanks to Mortal Kombat (2011), I decided to give it a rent and re-check it out.

Released a few months after Mortal Kombat 3 hit arcades, Mortal Kombat is a film heavily based off of Mortal Kombat (1992) and Mortal Kombat II.  An ancient and mysterious martial arts tournament is being held on a secluded island, hosted by the reclusive Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).  Throughout the centuries, Shang has manipulated events to win tournament after tournament, where a tenth and final victory will see our world merged with another Realm, that of Outworld, home to Shang Tsung's evil master Shao Khan (Frank Welker).

The Shaolin, under the guidance of the Thunder God, Raiden (Christopher Lambert), send a reluctant champion to compete, Liu Kang (Robin Shou), who is consumed by the desire to avenge his younger brother's death at Shang's hands.  Also manipulated into attending, the martial arts actor Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) hopes to prove his skills to the media and Special Forces agent Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) is hot on the trail of her nemesis, the crime lord Kano (Trevor Goddard) who is working with Shang.

Goro, of course, is the current tournament champion and a very well done (for the time) animatronic puppet, and Scorpion (Chris Casamassa) and Sub-Zero (Francois Petit) serve as Shang Tsung's enforcers.  Reptile (Keith Cooke) also appears, as one of Shang's spies, rounding out the first game's complete roster.  Kitana (Talisa Soto) from Mortal Kombat II is also featured, and Jax (Gregory McKinney) makes a cameo appearance.

As with most of Paul W.S. Anderson's films, the character development is light and archetypical with little depth, but the action and fight sequences are solid and still enjoyable.  The animatronic special effects are still pretty good and have aged well, while the CG effects were good for their time but of course have aged poorly.

When I was fourteen I remember how cool it was to see all these characters on the big screen, but many of my criticisms from back then still remain.  I was never a fan of Scorpion's Spear being a living creature instead of a traditional kunai and while I didn't mind Reptile being rendered as a little reptilian creature, I did take exception to him becoming his more traditional ninja form by "possessing" of corpse in the Wasteland of Outworld.  I was also disappointed by the basic supporting roles granted to Scorpion and Sub-Zero, though it does make sense plot wise, but their complete lack of conflict with each other seemed extremely out of place.

Watching Mortal Kombat today, what I personally find interesting is how much the film's art design has clearly influenced the art design of Mortal Kombat (2011).  Shang Tsung's Garden, for example, is represented clearly in the film before it ever saw the light of day in a game, and the knife Kano pulls on Sonya during their fight is the exact same one he uses in the current game.  Of course when various visual elements work it makes perfect sense that they cross between mediums, even over fifteen years later, and there's many more examples fans will quickly notice.  Some plot points also carried over into the games, such as the romance between Liu Kang and Kitana and the attraction between Cage and Sonya.

A cheesy yet enjoyable film, Mortal Kombat is worth the rental cost.  It took me back to a simpler time when my biggest worry was how to quickly get through my homework so I could make it to an arcade and practice my moves, and I'm never one to baulk at nostalgia.  Of course, if you have no interest in the franchise or fond memories of it, then Mortal Kombat likely won't entertain you much at all and you'll probably want to pass for something else.