It sounds redundant to call Vanquish a genre meld of third-person shooter and action, but the roots of Vanquish lie very much in pulling off stylish combos seen in games like Devil May Cry or the aforementioned Bayonetta. It may appear like a conventional shooter on the outside, but once you break the familiar face, underneath is whole ‘nother beast.

The mold is the same as many other shooters. Players will have flashbacks to Gears or even Mass Effect. Cover and vault system? Check. D-pad weapon selection? Check. Hold down triggers to aim? Check. Although the game meets the bare requirements to qualify as a western shooter, the game decides to eschew all semblance of AI entirely. There’s no pretense of “tactics” in combat. Your squad is simply cannon fodder (or ammo providers–reviving teammates replenishes ammo) and concepts such as “flanking” and “suppressing fire” are pointless.

So why is that Vanquish just immediately jumped to the number one spot on my “most wanted” list? Because the game is just plain awesome. It all has to do with how you move. You don’t just “sprint” from place to place–you rocket yourself. The protagonist is outfitted with a futuristic battle suit that comes with all kinds of nifty features, the biggest one being–rocket propulsion. Players can simply boost their way from cover to cover, skidding on their knees in a shower of sparks like some kind of badass. This maneuver increases the pace of the game dramatically. You’re be skidding and sliding your way around like profession ice skater in no time.

If sliding could make any shooter instantly fun, then all shooters would feature the ability. That’s why PlatinumGames added the “AR” system to complement the mobility options. The AR system is essentially bullet time. By pressing the aim button during an evasion roll, the player goes into a slow-mo precision aiming mode. The player also automatically goes into this mode when health teeters dangerously at a low level, giving him opportunity to find some cover.

All this boosting and bullet time is governed by a bar on the bottom right hand side of the screen. The bar also depletes during melee attacks, adding an element of resource management to the shooting — but there are some tricks that help preserve meter, and it’s called canceling. Canceling is prevalent in most fighting and action games, it’s when you cancel animations to proceed to the next one. Applying such a concept to a shooter is utterly bizarre and brilliant. Thanks to canceling, you can skip reload animations entirely by switching weapons, but better than that, you can go from shooting one gun to another seamlessly. In combination with the AR system, you can boost towards enemies in slow motion while pumping them full of lead. You can weapon-cancel from an assault rifle to shotgun blast during AR, melee attack and cancel with an evasion roll, and boost the hell out just in time to avoid the enemy attack.

The name of the game is all action, all shooting, as stylish as you can make it. I haven’t even touched upon the graphics which utilize all kinds of crazy effects from motion blur to some truly stunning particle effects. The game is graphically identical on both consoles in terms of resolution and performance. In either case, if you haven’t already downloaded the demo–do it, you’ll be glad you did.

“I will say that it’s still an active thing,” Levine said in an interview with Washington D.C. sports station 106.7 (via Kotaku). “And it is something we are still actively talking about and actively working on. I can’t tell you whether — you know, the movie business is complicated — I can’t tell you whether it’s going to happen for sure or it’s not going to happen for sure. But it’s something we are actively discussing, quite actively, and actively working on.”

Levine also talked about the differences between movies and video games, mainly how the protagonist can’t be anonymous like in video games. “You can’t really do that in a movie,” he said. “That’s your guy, that’s the guy you are following through.” He says that the character in the movie is “actually a person who is going through some sort of progression through his life.”

The zerglings come up the ramp, there are 6, no 8 of them. You have one chrono-boosted zealot and your cybernetics core is just now warping in. You’ve lost another game. How did they figure out you didn’t have anything?

Sometimes you need a little help to get that extra edge. Others want to dedicate their spare time getting to Platinum in 2v2 and some want to make a career out of being a champion gamer. Regardless of what your goal is in StarCraft 2, there are those who want to help you get better. Two weeks ago I attended “Gosu Camp,” an event that is the first of its kind that takes pro StarCraft players, some with 10+ years of experience, and lets the average Joe live a weekend in their shoes. Activities include everything from one-on-one coaching to just-for-fun 4v4 matches in our free time. Personally, I enjoyed the 4v4 baneling rush that me and camp mates attempted. Fun times.

GOSU training served me well!

Some of the top players in the country, the members of the pro team EG, hosted the camp at their house in Arizona. They also founded and run a website called gosucoaching.com where they offer online lessons to those who wish to be StarCraft-affluent. Teaching everything from control groups to scouting, they have experience teaching the skilled and unskilled alike.

One-on-one coaching was, by far, the most productive activity at camp. Coaches would frequently pair up with a camper and go through basic techniques and give advice as they play. They’d give tips on everything from probe production to attack timings or army composition. This would then be followed up with challenging matches in ladder or against other campers to reinforce these lessons and practice techniques. Nothing can compare to direct personal coaching with live feedback.

It's game time!

Other coaching related activities included nightly King of the Hill matches involving coaches and students, replay review of both pro players and student replays to see things that work or don’t work, group discussions over strategy, and live game review with the entire camp critiquing two players on what to do and what not to do. Some coaching time is even devoted to hand placement and key mental things.

Overall, the first ever gosu camp was a success with every student having measurable results. Some came away with key strats to get them through the next few weeks of laddering. Some got high level play with some of the best and advanced style discussion. For me, all I can say is that I made Diamond for the first time and drastically improved my overall game. Every camper there professed that they would love to come back, as the teachers say, there’s always something to learn about or improve on in any RTS game.

-Barnabas

Game time discussion!

“We think customers would like [Steam on Xbox 360],” says Valve’s Erik Johnson. “We think, anyway. We’d love to try that.”

Hopefully, with Sony offering a more open platform, it would force Microsoft to slack off on some of the restrictions, the same ones that are preventing a Final Fantasy XIV from coming to the Xbox 360 as well.

SURVIVOR ADVICE:

1. Be a vocal leader, but don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Okay guys, the tank’s coming. Split up and run. He won’t be able to catch all of us. HELP ME. Fuck.” -{Na}osamabinladen

2. Don’t speak or type. Assume your team is too good for trivial things like communication.

3. Mute your in-game audio so you can listen to some rockin’ tunes as you cruise around oblivious to your surroundings.

4. Run ahead and don’t look back. Why waste time turning around when you can simply assume that the team has your back? Don’t forget to blame your teammates for your death when you get too far ahead.

5. Run backward and don’t look ahead. See that Smoker taunting you back around that corner? Go fail at taking him out, and make sure you’re out of the line of sight of your teammates when he pulls you to your demise.

6. Run around with a melee weapon when the zombie horde is not within melee range. It’s silly to shoot zombies before they get to you when you can simply take out your frying pan and wait to be engulfed.

7. Right click the Charger.

8. Don’t be conservative with your auto shotgun. If you see a teammate getting attacked by a zombie, make sure to unleash at least four shells through your teammate’s face to ensure the zombie is dead and doesn’t get back up. Afterward, make sure to say “you’re welcome” so he understands that you have just saved his life.

9. Time your matches when you have to go AFK or leave the game.

SPECIAL INFECTED STRATEGIES:

1. The Frontal Smoker — Most smokers prefer to spawn behind their prey, pulling their target in the opposite direction the rest of the team is headed. The frontal smoker spawns directly in front of a team of survivors and gently drags one closer to their destination as his face gets pumped full of lead.

2. The Ninja Boomer — The common strategy for the boomer is to spawn ahead of a team in order to ambush them. The shadowy ninja boomer, on the other hand, spawns at least 20 meters behind the team and spends half of the round trying to catch up to his prey while avoiding detection. The art of ninja booming is tough to master, and has a 0% chance of success.

3. The Blind Hunter — Many players take pride in having pin point accuracy when it comes to landing an important pounce during a coordinated attack. The blind hunter prefers the thrill of a greater challenge. Players utilizing this strategy close their eyes before initiating an attack, hoping to land on a target through pure auditory detection. Most blind hunters will miss their target at least 10 times before being shot down or doing 1-2 points of damage.

This guide is a work in progress and there will be more strategies and tips to come.

Sources – VirusX

Link to the original story:

Whoops! In a strange turn of events, the next installment in one of Microsoft’s most beloved (and lucrative) video gaming franchises, Halo, has been leaked.

That’s the full version of Halo: Reach we’re talking about, a game which pulled more than 2.7 million players during its two-week beta in early May. While the alleged thieves come from a forum of modders known as GameTuts, Microsoft—in many ways—shares a little bit of the leak’s blame.

The game might have a release date of September 14, but Microsoft decided to seed Halo: Reach over its Xbox Live service for reviewers to download—sticking the full game with a seemingly impossibly price tag of 9999 Microsoft points, or around $1,250 in real-world cash. The industrious modders over at GameTuts somehow found their way past the special download code one would have to type in to access and download the game and, as you might expect, they grabbed themselves a copy.

“The GameTuts staff have all participated in the work of “Halo: Reach”. The main members of our team, Matty and Cthulhu have worked endless hours, pushing the barriers to allow our golden faces play “Halo: Reach,” reads a now-deleted post on the GameTuts forums.

“The intelligent mind of our beloved Admin, Matty worked endlessly to acquire this game, the deed was done. The moderator of GameTuts, Cthulhu is now the man of his word to work on the game file and allow our members see ‘Halo: Reach’ before its release.”

According to the post, GameTuts users have no intentions to release their acquisition before the game’s official release date—allegedly, the acquired code has been signed by Microsoft and thus runs without issue on an unmodified Xbox 360 console.

Microsoft is currently investigating the “security exploit” and, if past reactions are any indication, will undoubtedly ban the heck out of any console caught running the game prior to September 14.

At least, that’s what the company did in response to the leak of Halo 3 in 2007, which occurred some two-months before the game’s official release. Users caught playing the game were issued a 7,992-year ban from Xbox Live—as close to “bricking” a console as Microsoft can get.

While Halo:Reach developer Bungie has yet to comment on the leak, forum moderator Qbis98 has reiterated the official forum stance toward leaked information: a permanent ban for those who, “DISCUSS, REQUEST, or LINK TO information or campaign spoilers from illegitimately obtained sources — including illegitimately obtained copies of Halo: Reach — before the game is officially released.”

Of course, that hasn’t stopped those with access to Halo:Reach from posting videos of the game’s new multiplayer maps and single-player campaign to Youtube, amongst other places.

Chances are, that didn’t sit too well with Microsoft, and now the storefront is getting shut down.

Fortunately, downloadable games for the other consoles remain unaffected.

Judge Margaret M. Morrow of the California Central District Court agreed with Blizzard and levied a hefty penalty on Scapegaming. The site’s owner, Alyson Reeves, must pay blizzard $3,052,339 in disgorged profits, $85,478,600 in statutory damages, and $63,600 in attorney fees. Reeves will also have to pay interest on the outstanding balance of the fines until they are paid in full.

Because we all know Blizzard needs that money badly. I realize the person running Scapegaming shouldn’t have been raking in profits the way he did from hosting a private server. On the same note, it’s just a stupid private server. I can’t grasp why Blizzard cares about it that much and then have a judge levy an 88 million dollar fine! All joking aside, the person will never be able to pay that off in his/her life time.