Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

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Screenshots of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid HD Collection have been released on Konami’s official website. From what we can see, with the increased resolution we now have no jaggys and are presented with lusciously smooth models and sharp textures as well as a full 16:9 field of view. It has been confirmed by Konami that each game will run at a constant 60 fps with audio mastered in 5.1 surround sound. It’s quite hard to judge the precise quality due to the compressed nature of the .jpeg format, however, the games are looking very nice and should hopefully live up visually to their spectacular plots.

You can now view a walkthrough of the upgraded version of MGS3 below. It is stated in the video that a MGS2 video will follow soon:

For more screenshots and information visit here

MW3 Perks & Killstreaks

There are 3 seperate killstreak tiers, you have to choose which tier you want to choose your 3 killstreaks from. Not Entirely sure what this means; can you only use 3 from a certain section or can you mix and match?
Assault Killstreaks
4 Kills – Care Package
5 Kills – IMS – 3 or 4 placeable landmines that cannot be stunned or flashed
5 Kills – Predator Missile
5 Kills – Sentry Gun
6 Kills – Precision Airstrike
7 Kills – Attack Helicopter
7 Kills – Little Bird Flock – Mini Helicopters which patrol the map
9 Kills – Little Bird Guard – Big Helicopter that follows you from above and protects you
9 Kills – Mortar team – Mortar team but with 5 predator missiles – all go off at the same time in different places
10 Kills – Talcon – Mini Tank Robot
12 Kills – AC130
12 Kills – Pavelow
15 Kills – Juggernaut Suit – From spec Ops

Support Killstreaks
4 Kills – UAV
5 Kills – Counter UAV
5 Kills – Ballistic Duffel – Drop Juggernaught perk for the whole team, not jugg suit
5 Kills – Airdrop Trap – Drops a hacked care package
8 Kills – Sam Turret
10 Kills – Remote UAV – Target enemies with missiles
12 Kills – Advanced UAV – Blackbird
12 Kills – Remote Turret – Sentry Gun that you can control
12 Kills – Stealth Bomber
18 Kills – EMP
18 Kills – Juggernaught Recon Armour – Care Package Drop Armour
18 Kills – Escort Airdrop – Drops 5 care packages, one will be hacked

3rd  (Unknown Name)
2 Kills – You get 1 extra perk
4 Kills – Get another perk
6 Kills – Get another perk

Yes, it would seem much like Zombies in Treyarch games you can select more perks.

Perks
Plus = Pro benefit added

Tier 1
Extreme Conditioning – Sprint longer distances + Climb obstacles faster
Sleight Of Hand – Reload faster + Faster weapon swapping
Scavenger – Reload ammo from bags + Spawn with more ammo
Blind Eye – Undetectable from air support + Faster launcher lock on and extra damage to air support
Recon – Explosive damage marks target on HUD + Bullet damage marks target on HUD

Tier 2
Hardline – One less kill for Killstreak + Two assists count as a kill towards next killstreak
Assassin – Immune to UAV, Motion Sensor, Thermal and Heartbeat Sensor + Immune to CUAV & EMP
Overkill – Two primary weapons + Second primary can have 2 attachments
Quckdraw – Faster aim down sights + Faster animation of using equipment and throwing grenade
Blastshield – Flack Jacket (Immune to most explosives) + Immune to stuns and flashes

Tier 3
Sitrep – Enemy equipment is visible + Enemy footsteps are more clear
Dead Silence – Your footsteps are silent + No fall damage
Stalker – Faster movement with ADS + Delay on claymores
Marksman – ID target from range + Longer hold breath on scoped weapons
Steady Aim – Increased hip fire accuracy + Faster aim down sight while sprinting

There is also going to be a new killstreak system called the point system. You will earn killstreaks from assists and playing the objective (things like defusing the bomb and capturing a flag) aswell as from kills.

Not sure what this means regarding how many kills you need for different killstreaks but I’m guessing you won’t always need exaclty 4 kills for a UAV because sometimes you will earn points towards the UAV by getting assists or playing the objective.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger propels us into the boots of Steve Rogers (a digitally enfeebled Chris Evans in his fifth comic book-to-film adaptation – sixth if you count the most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film), a physically weak yet headstrong young man living in Brooklyn in 1942. Steve has put up with bullies his entire life and recognises the ongoing conflict as an opportunity for him to take down the biggest bully of all; the Nazi party. After being refused the opportunity to enlist many times, Steve is eventually provided with a glimmer of hope by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a geneticist searching for the right subject to enter into his ‘Super Soldier’ program, designed to aid the United States’ war effort, specifically in defeating the extremely dangerous HYDRA organisation lead by Johann Schmidt, also known as the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

As with many productions introducing a superhero with which a large portion of the audience will be unfamiliar, a significant amount of the running time is devoted to establishing the universe and characters of Captain America. Although this may have felt tedious in certain recent offerings, Captain America’s 1940s Brooklyn is recreated so tremendously in both sight and sound that this is never the case. New, interesting, characters are constantly being introduced, their personalities bolstered by genuinely entertaining dialogue.

Admittedly, Captain America’s narrative does at times devolve into standard action schlock; a highly uninteresting MacGuffin (a plot element, often an object, designed to catch the attention of the audience or advance the story) is provided in the form of ancient Norse object ‘the Tesseract’. Fortunately, the film is wrenched from the brink of failure by that rarest of qualities possessed by blockbusters; a satisfying ending with just the right amount of pathos. To add to the heartfelt conclusion, a post-credits scene and trailer, sure to send the most dedicated Marvel fans into a veritable frenzy, are included.

However, Captain America shares a weakness with Johnston’s  previous effort to bring a legend to the screen, The Wolfman; the film contains two distinctly different tones – that of a serious tale of one young man’s desperate attempt to join the armed forces against seemingly insurmountable odds and that of a fantastically overblown romp ripped straight from the pages of the original 1940s run of the comic. The shift between the two occurs at around a third of the way through the film and feels jarring to say the least though, as Captain America does not suffer the same constant flip-flopping in tone as The Wolfman did – rather maintaining this camp tone for the remainder of the film once it has been introduced -  the audience is quickly immersed once again in the plight of Steve Rogers.

Furthermore, Weaving is an entirely undwerwhelming villain. The Red Skull proper does not reveal himself until the camp portion of the film has firmly established itself and one would expect, in keeping with its tone, that a foaming, flailing über-nazi of sorts would emerge. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Weaving is spectacularly uncharismatic, leaving the audience to wonder how it was he managed to convince what appears to be an entire legion of highly skilled soldiers to ‘worship him as a God’ as Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) informs us.

Aside from Weaving’s floundering display, Captain America is phenomenally well cast and acted. Evans is fantastic in his turn as the at times goofy but fiercely determined all-American hero, while Hayley Atwell and Tommy Lee-Jones give admirable performances as quick-witted love interest Peggy Carter and curmudgeonly Colonel Phillips, respectively.

Captain America is, surprisingly, one of the more enjoyable comic-to-film adaptations to be released in recent years. If you catch only a handful of the blockbusters to enter cinemas this year, make this one of them.

- Tom Moore

The Stanley Parable

How do you go about describing a game like The Stanley Parable without doing it a complete injustice? It’s simply not possible. In a similar vein to the popular flash game ‘Every Day The Same Dream’, The Stanley Parable is yet more proof that games have the ability to be considered ‘art’.

The creator of The Stanley Parable says that ‘it’s actually best if you don’t know anything about it before you play it.’ This is definitely true, the game features six endings and therefore requires multiple plays to fully grasp the brilliance of this game. The game deals with the themes of conformity and self-assurance – both are very clear through the intelligently written forking narrative and multiple endings that gather to formulate an incredibly simplistic form of gameplay but a truly complex and harrowing story.

I highly recommend you play the game through for all six endings as this really is a brilliant example of the kind of atmosphere and storytelling that can be created so simplistically with such memorability in a game that will take you around 30-40 minutes to see everything it has to offer – and that’s a lot.

DL: http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-stanley-parable

- Ajay Stewart

 

MW3 Gun Balance

With every year a new Call of Duty is released and every year it sends the community into a frenzy. ‘This weapon’s overpowered! This weapon is underpowered! This attachment, that attachment!’. The arguments all tend to be inconclusive. For example, this year’s Black Ops initiated the argument that the FAMAS and AK74u were the most overpowered guns in the games and that they needed patching. Well Treyarch patched both and noone was happy. Some said ‘reduce the fire rate of the FAMAS and the clip size of the 74u’, others retorted with ‘well why not buff the submachine guns so they have a chance against the assault rifles’. The issue with all of these suggestions is that there are so many variables – if you buff the submachine guns then they essentially become super maneuverable assault rifles and you have to deal with a whole new issue of problems.

My theory is that unless there is an issue where you simply stand almost no chance – the unpatched 1887 akimbo shotguns from MW2 – then there really isn’t anything to be angry about. The FAMAS and 74u are fine as they now and can easily be beaten by any gun used appropriately. Should a developer ever produce a game where fans see absolutely no difference between each of the guns as they’re so perfectly balanced then surely that game would be incredibly mundane and come down to pure connection and to an extent skill with the controller. Isn’t the idea to have a game that challenges you? Where you have weapons like the Kiparis that, when played smartly, can easily outgun the FAMAS and give a strong sense of accomplishment that you outgunned someone with a ‘superior’ weapon. I think the fun lies in marginal unbalance. Getting a high KD with duel wielded skorpions is definitely something to be proud of.

I’m hoping MW3 will have the same kind of balance that Black Ops and COD4 had in that there were the odd superior gun (the MP5 or the M16 red dot) but also have the weaker guns like the Mini-Uzi and Skorpion. I really think marginal imbalance is the key to a fun and optionally challenging game.

- Ajay Stewart

PlayStation Vita coming next year

Sony plan to launch the anticipated PS Vita this year…but only in Japan. In a recent interview conducted by Bloomberg Japan, Sony’s Vice President Kaz Hirai said, “Under our current plan, we will release [PlayStation Vita] early next year in the European and North American markets.”

The system’s pricing has already been announced for Japan as ¥24,980 for the Wi-Fi only model and ¥29,980 for the 3G model. Which equates roughly to £195 for the Wi-Fi model and £235 for the 3G model. It is likely to be more expensive once it hits the shelves over here. During the interview session, Hirai said that there was no need to reduce the system’s price in response to Nintendo’s recent 3DS price drop announcement.

Sony seems confident in its launch titles, some of the most anticipated being Uncharted: Golden Abyss Resistance, Killzone and Bioshock. Nintendo’s 3DS seemed to suffer from its lack of intriguing launch titles and thus it suffered from poor sales and the inevitable price drop.

Do you think the PS Vita will suffer the same fate?

Final Fantasy Type-0 demo on its way

The Japanese PlayStation Network is set to receive the infamous Final Fantasy Type-0 demo shown at the Odaiba event a few weeks ago. The demo is due for release on August 11th through both the PlayStation Store and the game’s official site. The demo will contain four missions and seven characters. Those who play the demo will gain access to bonus content in the form of new costumes for the main characters. This extra content can be carried over into the final game.

From what we can see, the game looks graphically spectacular. As for the gameplay, it is unclear exactly how it plays but it does seem to be highly similar to that of Crisis Core. More news on the subject as it becomes available.

Welcome to Wakka Gaming

The first post is always important. It sets the tone for your blog and will inevitably draw in your initial readers. I have one video that will accurately describe this blog.

Stay tuned for the initial articles!

Ajay Stewart