Borderlands, now sponsored by the Jeep Cherokee

Information on Borderlands‘ third DLC installment has started flowing today (I think Destructoid were the first to the punch), which is to be titled “Secret Armory of General Knoxx“.

This would seem to be the update that Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford hinted at a long while ago when talking with Game Informer, that will raise the level 50 cap, although no word yet on how far.

But if the PR and new promo screens are anything to go by, then we’re assured new enemies, new weapons and at least one new type of vehicle … which sort of looks like something you’d choose to go kangaroo shooting in.  Or something that John Leguizamo challenge you to a sound system contest in (illustrated here at 2.22).

Given that actually finishing Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot could still be nine years away for me and Moose, this could provide a fun (and maybe even completeable!) little distraction.

Check out the official details over at Gearboxity.  No word yet on release dates, but I would imagine a PR push means sooner rather than later.  More details as they emerge … provided I can tear my eye sockets away from Mass Effect 2 for more than 5 minutes.

Even the roller-disco guy behind Master Gee seems unimpressed...

Have you ever downloaded a demo for a game, and it turns out it’s just no good?  I mean the gameplay’s average, the story’s a mess and the nudity deserves no wood!  But you try to play it off, think it artistic licence, or that the devs are just playing the fool … but then you impale Death with his scythe, shoot explosions from a cross and you realise “Nuh-uh, it’s bull!”

Well the ever-helpful folk over at Achievement Hunter have posted up a few interesting images this week.  They’ve managed to get their hands on the achievement list for the “Dark Forest” DLC pack that will be released for Dante’s Inferno sometime after it’s release.  It must have been a tough slog for a while there, but the leaked achievements manage to live up to the level of class we’ve come to expect from anything surrounding Dante’s Inferno.

Achievements like “Just the Tip”, “Wacko Jacko” and “Cruici-f**ked” could all be making their way to your gamer profile soon … well, maybe as soon as Dante’s Inferno is available for $20 in the pre-owned bin I guess.  The one that really caught my eye, however, was “Crapper’s Delight” which requires you to get covered in five different types of demon shit.

I must have missed the part in the Divine Comedy that covered that particular part in Alighieri’s journey.  Maybe my Latin translation isn’t up to scratch.

So not content with ruining old school literature, the developers are also looking to ruin some old school hip-hop for me by crowbarring in an awful pun based on the works of the Sugarhill Gang.  For shame, Visceral, for shame.  So deep was my face-palming that I was forced to find an image of Master Gee looking all: “Oh no they didn’t!”

Head on over to Achievement Hunter to check out the full list of DLC achievements.  They’re all just as high-brow, I promise.

Metallica's latest concert DVD offering

People have called Metallica a lot of things over the years. Some of them have been complimentary and some of them have been less so*. But something they’ve never really been called is prolific. The band has been around for nearly 30 years and more than half of their studio albums were release in the first 10 years of their career.

Which makes this an interesting time for the band. They’re still touring their latest album and they’ve already released two new live DVDs. It’s the latest one, Orgullo, Pasion y Gloria – Tres Noches en La Cuidad de Mexico, that’s the subject of this review.

The DVD documents the band’s three-night run of shows in Mexico City in June 2009. Multiple versions are available – the two disc version includes video of every single track the band played over all three shows, and the list of songs that got left out is probably not much longer than the list of ones they included. You can also get the DVD with or without audio CDs of the gig, and it comes in Bluray too if you’re that way inclined. I’m reviewing the standard single-disc DVD edition though.

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Just bristling with Academy muscle

Recently we got our hands on a closed beta key for Cryptic Studio’s upcoming MMO Star Trek Online, and we’ve been exploring the galaxy since then kicking ass and taking comm-badges.  The beta test comes to a close tomorrow, so I thought I’d give you a few observations on how the game is shaping up so far.

Now since I was a kid I’ve been a fan of Star Trek.  Nothing fanatical, but I can tell you the difference between a deflector dish and a nacelle, so it was with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation that I booted up Star Trek Online for the first time.  The beta only gave access to the Federation races (Klingon allied races will be selectable upon the game’s release), so before long I was sculpting my own little Academy graduate.

The Federation includes all the races you’d expect; Humans, Vulcans, Bajorans, Andorians (with those adorable blue antennae), along with several others and each has their own advantages and stat modifiers.  Also, if you’re sick of seeing the same old faces, players can go ahead and make up their own species.  In typical Trek style, they’ll still end up looking human from the neck down (no Sheliak or gas monsters, folks), but this offers the advantage of allowing you to choose your own racial modifiers.  I don’t give it long before someone works out a way to troll with this option, but where would Star Trek be without oddly human looking species that are only seen once or twice?

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Enemies trust a mock surrender from Rios' giant soulful eyes

“Let’s do the math on whoever screwed us later, and concentrate on getting the hell outta dodge…”

This line, spoken by Rios near the beginning of their latest title, Army of Two: the 40th Day, borders on a prescience that John Edward would probably kill to achieve. With this one simple line, he’s not only accurately encapsulated the entire game’s plot, but also predicted the reaction most gamers will experience by the time they finish. It’s probably close to the most succinct review I could give of this game, so if you want to save yourself ~1000 words of reading then by all means take this as my official sentiment too … you lazy bastard.

Army of Two: the 40th Day is the sequel to EA Montreal’s firefights ‘n’ fist-bumps co-op shooter Army of Two. The “just good friends” duo of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem find themselves in Shanghai, employed to complete a simple mission that unfolds into the city’s complete destruction and occupancy by the enigmatic 40th Day Initiative. The 40th Day is commanded by an ex-military soldier called Jonah, a fact that will possibly escape you all the way up until you decide to kill him.

The majority of the game follows Salem and Rios’ attempt to escape the city. While I can appreciate what the developers have attempted here, to recreate a somewhat realistic military situation based on lack of information and rapidly changing situation, the result is less than impressive. The open nature of the plot strips most of the purpose out of the combat, which means the combat feels somewhat dull. (more…)

Looking to continue a fine tradtion of turning fighting games into awful films, the trailer for the new Tekken movie was recently unleashed upon an unsuspecting internet. It’s … well, maybe it’s best if you make up your own mind:

So we’ve got a Jin, an Eddy, a comically young looking Heihachi, but in a movie that looks so ridiculous to begin with, where are the great novelty fighters? Mokujin will obviously be out of the tournament considering Jin snapped his wang arms off in the training montage, but did anyone see an android body-builder pounding the crap out of a paraplegic scientist? Anyone notice a panda cossak dancing at an angry geode? No? Well then I’m already outraged at the complete disregard for Tekken canon.

A slight against Roger Jnr is a slight against a whole continent

But the outrage doesn’t stop there. With what is clearly a snub to honest, hard-working Australians, director Dwight H. Little (best known for his work on Anacondas 2: Electric Boogaloo) has seen fit to exclude the AU’s favourite son Roger from the cast list. Roger (and in-pouch joey Roger Jnr, pictured left with the classic Australian “The-fuck-you-lookin-at?” expression) is a boxing kangaroo, a genus of marsupial that features prominently in Australia’s iconography, and his apparent omittance from the movie has patriotic Aussie fighter fans furious.

And as if that wasn’t enough, not content with just offending a whole continent either, Roger’s cruel cutting also means that we won’t be seeing his hetero cross-species life-mate Alex the Boxing Raptor either. So well done, Little, you’ve managed to outrage not just a country, but the whole Cretaceous period.

You should be ashamed, sir! Heartily ashamed!

Feel free to stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

So we’ve been hearing about it’s development for a little while now, but today was the big PR push for Mana Bar, Brisbane’s one and only gaming ‘n’ grog nightspot.  Being an admitted fan of combining games and alcohol, the idea was always going to intrigue me.  Here’s some delicious press release:

Opening in February 2010, The ‘Mana Bar’ is the first licensed venue that will allow people to enjoy a drink while playing the latest video game systems.

Located Australia in the heart of Brisbane’s entertainment district the Mana Bar will feature a stylish geek chic interior design with multiple LCD screens attached to the walls with playable next-gen console systems. The venue will be accessible to a wider casual market, while still catering to the hardcore gamer crowd.

Entry to the venue will be free, with no charge to play the games. The Mana Bar has a 50 person maximum capacity, and will host many special events such as game release parties, guitar hero tournaments, trivia nights, launch events, and many more.

The whole concept has been cooked up by four Australian gaming enthusiasts: AustralianGamer’s ‘Yug’ Blomberg, Creative Assembly’s Pras Moorthy, Shay Leighton and … some other guy I didn’t quite catch the name of.  Must have slipped my mind.  Oh well, I’m certain some other site may have dropped his name at some point.

In all seriousness, I’m interested to find out how the whole thing goes when the bar opens up in late February.  Is it going to be a fun, creative place where gamers can hang out and drink, or simply a controller snatching console camp-a-thon?  I’d seriously love to find out the structure the boys are putting into place for use of the machines.  Meanwhile, I’m going to assume that the dubious drinking profits from a maximum of 50 engrossed gamers will be nicely offset by lucrative gaming industry functions and events.

Still, with no cover charge and free games on tap all night, it certainly sounds like something to check out for all you Brisbane folk.  Head over to the official site for more details as they come to hand!

OK, so there’s plenty of cool tech news that’s come out of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but this one caught my eye for the sheer oddity.  In it’s keynote presentation, Microsoft finally revealed it’s previously spoiled avatar arcade hub entitled “Game Room”.

PlayStation Home people will already get half the idea.  Your account is given a space to customise to your heart’s content (and wallet’s expense), except Game Room will allow Xbox avatars to install working arcade games into the environment to play against your friends.  So now you can finally relive the heady classics like Outlaw, Astrosmash and … uhh Space Hawk, and it will only cost you a nominal fee to play something you could find online for free!  Or even better you can demonstrate your intellectual inferiority to lobotamy patients true love of retro gaming by pumping in 40 Microsoft Funbux for a single play.  Z0MG, I never realised how nostalgic I was for the lack of value we had in the olden days!

So the complete lack of a demographic, desire and sensible pricing aside, here’s the oddity.  One of the real life arcades I used to go to when I was a kid was Playtime arcade in Northland (sometimes pronounced Norf-lans) Shopping Centre.  And when I was looking over the announcement trailer, something seemed creepily familiar:

That’s Game Room on the left and Playtime on the right, for anyone who’s having difficulty telling them apart.

So while I’m fine with Microsoft obviously basing their avatar arcade on a real life arcade, I’m now curious to find out if they’ll also bother to include all the other pertinent aspects of a visit to Playtime? Namely machines that don’t work, staff that don’t care and wandering gangs of high-school drop outs saying “The fuck you looking at, c**t?” while huffing paint out of a plastic bag.  Maybe Microsoft, just to protect against any unexpected residual self-image, should take Northland’s approach and make sure classical music is playing inside Game Room at all times to keep the undesirables out.

Game Room is set to be released sometime in the first half of the year.  I can tell you’re all just holding your breath in anticipation.

No, it's not a ovary simulator...

Ever wonder what it’s like being trapped in a zero gravity atmosphere, lacking in hope and with only the tiniest amount of propulsion between you and certain death?  Well, that’s not the “official” summary of Hemisphere Games’ puzzler Osmos, but that’s certainly how it felt to me during certain points of the game.

Osmos is a game based on physics and, possibly more importantly, mass.  Players take control of a mote, a sort of amorphous orb, that you can propel around the game space by ejecting small amounts of it’s mass.  The objective is always to become the biggest mote in the play field, which you can achieve by absorbing motes smaller than yourself.  If you come into contact with a mote larger than yours, it absorbs you and if you can’t get away in time it’s game over.  In this sense, Osmos could almost be described as an asset management challenge.  Except of course it’s too damn good looking.

Sounds simple?  It is … or at least the concept is.  I was somehow lulled into a false sense of security by the games early levels, which are a relaxed affair, which led me to become unpleasantly surprised when the game cranks up the difficulty level to 11 in the higher stages.  What begins as a very paced, quite elegant game in it’s beginnings, quickly managed to become a fast-paced cuss fest as soon as I’d advanced far enough.

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Just wait until you see the Blood Bowl adaptation of "Any Given Sunday"

It’s a little hard to reconcile the realm of table games with video games sometimes.  People who play table games are quite often a patient bunch.  After all, once they’ve bought a game they’ve got to assemble it, pain-stakingly paint it and then find someone of a similar inclination to play against.  Video gamers, on the other hand, prefer the immediate thrill of jumping straight into the action, and then quitting the moment our minds start to wander.

Maybe because the play styles are so disparate explains the rather hot and cold experience of Cyanide Studio’s console adaptation of Games Workshop’s classic Blood Bowl.  Despite having all the elements to create a fun, exciting and entertaining title, it lacks harmony between it’s table game roots and it’s video game incarnation.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of playing a game of Blood Bowl, the basic premise is that of an American Football game played out in a fantasy reality.  Set in the original Warhammer universe, teams come from several different races, including humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc.  While the aim of the game is still to field an 11 player team and get the ball into the end-zone, often a simpler way to victory is to just stomp the opposing team into the turf and then walk in a touchdown.

In fact if anything, it’s the preferred way.

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