A double dose of Dante’s Inferno news this morning that’s sure to make gamers happy.
First up, news from EA (courtesy of Kotaku) concerning the release date for the game’s official demo. PS3 and XBox 360 owners will be able to try out the first level of the title sometime next month. EA hasn’t been more specific than that but you can at least sleep easy tonight knowing that you’ll be guiding Dante through Hades sooner rather than later.
If that wasn’t enough to satiate your need for all things Inferno, here’s another developer diary on the game. This newest segment covers level six, better known as “Heresy”. This new level finds Dante going deeper into Hell–and it’s the first area in the game that really portrays a fire-and-brimstone Hell that many of us recognize from the Bible. One of the producers mentions that by this stage, we’re “in Satan’s backyard”.
Dante’s Inferno continues to impress me with each new diary they reveal (which means EA’s marketing plan is working). We’ll all get a chance to experience the finished product when it hits retailers everywhere on February 9th of next year.
I posted a developer’s demo for Konami’s Saw videogame a few days ago, but it didn’t have any actual combat footage in it. Here’s a different clip from GameTrailers, complete with a look at how you’ll be fighting your way through and a very unpleasant surprise.
Gamers will be able to decide if they want to live or die this October.
I’ll be brutally honest–I didn’t expect much from a videogame tie-in to the Saw movies. You know the drill…movie tie-ins suck, blah blah blah. Even news of the project winding up in the capable hands of Konami (who seem to have a pretty keen understanding of horror games) wasn’t enough to sell me on the idea that navigating an avatar through a maze of Jigsaw traps would actually be fun.
I’m not sure what it is (maybe the lowered expectations, or maybe that game actually looks decent), but I’m warming up to the idea of a Saw game after viewing this demo footage of the title in action at E3. One of the game’s associate producers took GameTrailers on a guided tour and things seem to be shaping up nicely.
Saw the game seems to capture the look and feel of Saw the movies suprisingly well. Granted, there’s no shortage of horror games out there aping the whole “charater runs through grimy and abandoned locales” motif, but at least in Saw’s case, it’s done for a reason beyond “it’s creepy and everyone else is doing it”. You can’t really have a Saw game in a clean, well-lit room.
During the tour of the game, viewers get a chance to see some detailed environments (including some gore), notes from Jigsaw, and a booby trap. That’s all nice, but I’m a little concerned that we haven’t seen any combat or interaction with enemies. The exploration element looks interesting enough, but I’m a little concerned about not seeing any of the action-oriented components of the game.
Oh, and for anyone wondering–Tobin Bell will be voicing Jigsaw in the game.
Saw the game will put players in a series of life-and-death situations this October. Look for it on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.
It’s good to see that movies aren’t the only artform where the whole remake/reboot phenomenon is running wild. Game companies have been on the bandwagon for quite awhile now, too. The difference is that game remakes are generally more interesting because technological advances make them at least appear to be new experiences. Take, for instance, Konami’s re-imagining of the original Silent Hill.
In the video demo below, Tom Hulett (an associate producer at Konami) is quick to assert that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a reboot or remake of Silent Hill. Whether you agree with that sentiment or find it more an issue of semantics is mostly irrelevant. Sure, the game brings back the characters and story from the original game, but it becomes clear early on in this demo that Shattered Memories isn’t the same Silent Hill we played back in the PlayStation era.
The game is slated for release on the PS2, PSP, and Nintendo Wii, but it’s the Wii version getting all the press here. Naturally, motion controls have been added to the Nintendo version, but there are other gameplay and interface tweaks that will be apparent to gamers playing any of the new versions. Take, for example, the game’s new cell phone interface. Rather than clicking over to a clunky menu screen to save, use items, or do any of the other seemingly mundane tasks games ask players to complete, Shattered Memories handles all of this in a much more seamless (and realistic) fashion by having all of the menu options mapped to an in-game cell phone. Even better is that accessing the cell phone’s options doesn’t stop the actual game. If the player’s got some sort of gruesome monster chasing him down, opening the cell phone won’t create a temporary break in the action.
Another interesting mechanic is that the game seems more interested in taking away gamers’ safety nets than most other survival horror titles. The onus in Shattered Memories is placed on escaping monsters by slowing them down or evading them through the environment as opposed to blasting them with heavy weaponry. It’s an interesting idea (that’s been explored in other series like the Fatal Frame games)–I’m curious if it will work through the entire experience, though.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Check out G4’s live demo of the game below for more information on what to expect when this game eventually hits retail shelves.
Kotaku is reporting that the official demo for the much anticipated Resident Evil 5 will be appearing on the Xbox 360 starting January 26th. The Playstation 3 version will be availabe come February 3rd.
According to people in the know, the American demo will be the same as the Japanese one (that some people have already played) and will feature the Assembly Place and Shantytown areas. Aside from the single player experience, gamers will also be able to try out the cooperative mode in the demo.
Resident Evil 5’s full version will be available come March 13th.
