Bungies absence at E3, explained!!!

Very recently Bungie posted a revealing letter on its website detailing the reason for its suspicious absence from this year's E3, currently being held in Los Angeles. Rather than paraphrase, here's the statement directly from the horse's mouth:

For the last several months, we've been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on. We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were just changed by our publisher.We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events; members of the Bungie team share that disappointment. When the right time comes, we look forward to sharing this exciting announcement with you. Until then, we appreciate your continued support and patience.Harold RyanPresidentBungie LLC

final fantasy 13, impressions

By now you've surely heard the big news: Final Fantasy XIII is coming to Xbox 360. Square-Enix is trying to reach as broad of an audience as possible for its next epic role-playing game, which means bringing it to a Microsoft system in North America and Europe. Final Fantasy XIII producer Yoshinori Kitase and Square-Enix corporate executive Shinji Hashimoto were in town for the announcement and IGN got the chance to sit down for a small question and answer session to go into a bit more detail than what was revealed in yesterday's larger press conference. The game is still a work in progress and so details remain slim, but we were able to wrestle a few details out of the tight-lipped developers.The first question on the floor was one to clarify how, if at all, the Xbox 360 release would affect the PS3 version. The short answer is that it won't. Final Fantasy XIII is being developed first for the PS3 in Japan, a region that won't see an Xbox 360 release. The Xbox 360 iteration is a port of the PS3 build, but Square was quick to point out that you can't say this will cause a delay of the PS3 release in America. Separate teams are working on the two versions and both are moving along on schedule. There shouldn't be a delay in any releases.

Previous Final Fantasy games have taken at least six months to bring them from Japan to North America, and then another six months to reach Europe. The team plans on cutting this time down considerably for Final Fantasy XIII. Because of this shorter time, there are no plans for additional content over what the Japanese original has. There also are no plans to have the games be different on Xbox 360 and PS3. Nothing has been decided for sure yet, but the team is looking at ways to compress the audio and pre-rendered cutscenes that take up a lot of data without affecting the quality when bringing the game from a blu-ray format to the DVDs that Xbox 360 reads. Several screenshots have been released at this E3 and Square has been showing a trailer behind closed doors and at press conferences to attendees. We asked for details on these characters, but Square is not ready to talk about them just yet. The only one they would go into any detail on is the girl featured prominently in the video. She's called Lightning, though that isn't her real name. The trailer often shows her alone, which was done to portray one of the major themes in the game. The game doesn't begin with a large group of people fighting together. "There's almost sort of a rejection at the beginning," says Kitase. Lightning refuses to fight alongside others at first and, "then the relationship builds from there. The trailer was crafted to portray that theme and get that message across."The trailer also showed some key words, such as cocoon and pulse. The Final Fantasy XIII series, including Versus, is based on the Fabula Nova Crystalis mythology. Pulse is a keyword that arises from the crystal mythology. Just as bridges or streets could be named after myths, Pulse is the name of a certain region in Final Fantasy XIII.

As far as the battle system goes, details are still slim. The system is called "ATB" and is said to be an enhanced version of FFXII. FFX, for those that aren't in the know, did not display the enemies on the battlefield and then teleported the player to a separate screen for the randomly occurring fights. FFXII, meanwhile, had a battle system closer to what you find in a standard MMO where the enemies can be seen in and then engaged on the same screen. Kitase says he "took the best of X and XII and created something entirely new and evolved it... there will be monsters on the field but it's a little bit different from the MMO style that XII had."The director of the game, Toriyama, really likes to focus on story and motion. The director of the battle system, meanwhile, likes to focus on the battles and making that exciting. Kitase says that those two elements will be very well blended. "There is possibly going to be certain moments of the game where the story is very played up and players will be going in a linear direction, but then battles will also kick in at a certain point. [They're] aiming for a good balance there."Kitase spoke briefly about the audio direction Final Fantasy XIII is taking. The team is in the midst of casting voice actors for the Japanese version right now, so there are no key names that could be given. "In the Final Fantasy series, we're always looked to find voices that match the appearance and personality of the characters best. So in that sense, we're looking for someone that is right for the image of the character and has talent in voice acting." In terms of the music, the team will start working on putting together the soundtrack after the cutscenes are finished and polished to match them properly. This hasn't happened yet, but they do have an idea on what direction the music should take. For this game, the team would like to incorporate more voices and choral work.Kitase spoke about carrying the Final Fantasy torch and commented on how this game will be unique, yet familiar. "In the grand scheme of things, Final Fantasy XIII is probably very different and new from anything you've seen in the series before. But, everybody on the team has played XII and the previous titles and there is an unseen connection there among the series." He then went on to tell a story about a conversation with Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series. In it he asked Sakaguchi about what makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game. Jokingly, Sakaguchi told him that as long as you have white text on a blue background, you should be fine. Final Fantasy XIII doesn't have that, but Kitase says it's still a continuation. Megaton?

LATEST E3 VIDEOS FROM YOUTUBE!!!! CHECK IT OUT

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

GEARS OF WAR 2!!!!, a little taste...

Let's get the obligatory bad news out of the way: there is no four-player co-op for the campaign mode in Gears of War 2. Deal with it. Players will just have to make due with the traditional two-player mode, presumably starring Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago as the only two playable characters. Thankfully Epic is bringing a mode to Gears 2 that some are sure to enjoy even more than playing through the campaign with a friend. It's called Horde and it allows for five human players to link up and do battle against wave after wave of AI-controlled enemies. I played it, it's awesome and it's going to ruin what little social life I have left.Not only did Epic take the veil off a brand new mode, but we also got to play on two new maps with new weapons and some fantastic enemies that change the Gears experience ever so slightly.

I'll begin with Horde. As I said, it allows for five human players to join up and do battle against fleets of Locust. The only downside is that Horde is the one mode that won't feature the all-new bot support in Gears 2. Luckily this mode is still fun when playing alone. The Locust come in waves that get tougher as you progress. The first was obviously an introduction with fewer than ten enemies challenging my team but that number grew quickly as we progressed. The rounds are numbered so you and your pals can compete for supremacy. The record at Epic's studio currently sits at 26, but true Gears professionals have the ability to progress all the way to 50 if they have the skills to pay the bills.As we continued to work our way through the waves of baddies, their numbers began to grow. We made it as high as Wave 18, but by that point things had degenerated into frenzied action with muffled attempts at strategizing along the way. Despite the fact that we were able to use sniper perches to support our ground forces, it didn't stop me from feeling that the enemy was breathing down my neck at every turn. It's a feeling that was absent from nearly every skirmish in Gears 1, yet it feels like a perfect fit for the "bigger, better, more" stigma of the second game.Part of this was because of a new enemy called a Ticker. It resembles a white dog with squatty little legs and gets its name from the sound it emits as it gets closer. Let that nasty little thing make its way to your feet and the bomb that's strapped to its back will explode, bringing you down with it. Epic did a fantastic job with the sound of the Ticker. It eventually evoked a Pavlovian response in me as I'd hear the ticking and immediately begin spinning around like a chicken with its head cut off in search of the little bastard.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the new Boomer variants that populate Horde. They're essentially the same creature as in Gears 1 but now they're outfitted with new armor and weapons. One has a shield and an explosive flail that he hurls around until it comes crashing down, blowing up the ground when it hits. Another carries the new flamethrower whose gas tanks can be shot and exploded as a means for a quick takedown and then there's the one carrying a Mulcher which is Epic's fancy name for its rendition of the gatling gun.

FABLE 2!! Impressions

Choice. This is the gift Peter Molyneux wishes to give gamers. The freedom to explore a world, decide whom to help and whom to destroy. While the original Fable gave us a basic viewpoint on good and evil, its sequel promises to more deeply explore morality. It's not about being good or evil -- that's too simple. It's poverty vs. wealth, kindness vs. cruelty, purity vs. corruption, selflessness vs. selfishness. How much are you willing to sacrifice to be good? Or how greedy will you be?At one point in Fable 2, you meet a shadow creature who decides that one person must suffer in order to proceed in a crucial part of a quest. A young, attractive woman wanders into the woods and you are given a choice. One person must be horribly scarred. But will you sacrifice your own face to save this pretty girl or will you let vanity rule your decision? Sure, it could be easy to say you don't care about how you look, but your appearance affects how everyone in Albion reacts to you. Come home to your wife and kids with a mangled face and they will scream with terror. Are you willing to spend the rest of your time in Fable 2 horrifying children? And if not, then you forfeit the happiness of an innocent woman.The choices you make not only affect your hero, but the rest of the game world. Early on in Fable 2, you will be given a quest to find five arrest warrants. Once you find them, you can choose to deliver them to the sheriff or hand them over to the band of thieves who are supposed to be arrested. Choose the former and ten years later this dynamic region of Albion will be an affluent neighborhood with no crime and will be a booming trade center. Choose the latter and in ten years you'll find the place has become a slum, rife with crime. Every choice has a consequence in Fable 2.You can even choose to alter cut-scenes. That's right, with the exception of some FMV scenes, you will be able to interrupt cut-scenes with your character's actions. We've seen cut-scenes where you can walk around as people talk, but this is different. You can perform expressions (laugh, fart, smile, flirt, etc.) during cut-scenes as well. And the dialogue and even the events of cut-scenes will sometimes change based on those actions.Want to be evil? When someone comes running up to you with a sob story about their missing child and how they desperately need help, you can laugh at them. Just chuckle away. They won't ignore your action -- it will lead to a reaction. Fable 2 wants to keep you in control at all times so that you can morph your character to act as you'd like.

resident evil 5 release date!!

Capcom has announced a March 12, 2009 release date for Resident Evil 5 in Japan and March 13, 2009 date for North America and Europe at Microsoft's E3 press conference. During the debut of a new Resident Evil 5 gameplay video, it was announced that the game will feature online cooperative play. Players will be able to hop-in-and-out and teams will be able to do moves that they couldn't do by themselves. Joining Chris Redfield is a new team member in Shiva Olimar.

fallout 3, exclusive downloadable content!!!

July 14, 2008 - At the Microsoft Press Conference here at E3 2008, Todd Howard of Bethesda demoed Fallout 3 and mentioned that the game would have "extensive" downloadable content, exclusively for Xbox 360 and Games For Windows.There was no official statement on what the content would be, but there has been rumors about potential new weapons and maps.No word yet on if the Play station 3 will have its own exclusive content or if the 360 and Windows content is just a timed exclusive.

OTHER 360 IMPROVEMENTS !!

Microsoft sure had itself a doozy of a press conference this year, but there's still more in store for Xbox 360 users than what was detailed during the keynote. First off, with the upcoming update, Microsoft will let users store and play back games from their hard drives. You'll have to have the disc in your drive for piracy reasons, but it won't be spinning during game play, which means quieter gaming and quicker load times (and more 60GB sales, we thinks, how convenient). Next up, Microsoft will let users make Xbox LIVE Marketplace purchases on the web, which are then automatically downloaded to your 360 for your enjoyment when you get home -- or walk across the room. The old "blades" Dashboard interface will be moved to the new Xbox Guide, which will provide a quick way to access everything on your 360. Finally, the 360 will support the 16:10 aspect ratio over VGA or HDMI, and work in 1440 X 900 and 1680 X 1050 resolutions.

Netflix on 360 this fall!!!

US Xbox 360 got some huge news today in Microsofts new partnership with netflix , but the Dashboard's got us pretty damned excited, too. We got a chance to sit down with Microsoft, including Shane Kim, VP of Strategy and BizDev for Xbox. Here's what you need to know:Netflix
For now, Netflix will only stream in about-SD resolution.
As Netflix transitions to HD, Microsoft said it stands to reason that streaming HD to the Xbox should be feasible. (Read: eventual.)
Netflix will be for Xbox Live Gold members only, so you'll be paying that $50 per year if you want it.
Netflix video sharing ONLY works with other Netflix / Xbox Live Gold subscribers. You can't share video with a Silver member, or who doesn't subscribe to Netflix.
Microsoft doesn't seem to have concerns about redundant content between Netflix and XBLM, or Netflix cannibalizing XBLM sales. Makes sense -- if you had content available to rent or stream with Netflix, you probably weren't going to pay to rent it on XBLM anyway. Xbox

XBOX 360 NEW DASHBOARD!!

HERE IT IS THE NEW DASH!, ok as may notice there are a shit load of new features, and a hole new interface added to the dashboard that will arrive in the coming fall, check it out and tell me what you think;