Video Games Live

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Video Games Live


The final even of E3 Day 2 was the awesome show of Video Games Live.  If you’re reading this and asking yourself, “What’s Video Games Live?”  First off, go do some research and come back.  Secondly, it’s only the most awesome concert evah for video game geeks!  This year, VGL was performing their 200th show so we got to see music never before seen performed live and a lot of guest composers of popular video games series such as Resident Evil and World of Warcraft.  You can really feel like a true gaming geek at VGL and you are joined by thousands of other gamers in a fun atmosphere.  We laughed, cried and got to listen to some kick ass video game soundtracks.  While the overall experience of E3 is fantastic, I really look forward to Video Games Live as it is one of the most enjoyable experiences of the entirety of E3.

Gameslave Awesome Meter:

IrishPride - 10/10

Gears of War 3

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Gears of War 3

Ah, Gears of War 3, last year at E3 you told me you would be released in April 2011.  As you all know, E3 is held in June and GoW 3 had a new demo booth, so no, it was not released in April 2011!  But I digress.  Even if you dashed my hopes away of the April 2011 release date, it still looks like it’s going to be a hell of a ride for the final Gears of War.  The main announcement at E3 for Gears of War 3 was the co-operative Horde 2.0 mode where you and your friends get together and fight waves and waves of enemies.  As you fight through these waves, you earn money to build and improve fortifications, such as gun turrets and walls.  At every tenth wave you have to fight one of the games many bosses.  Each play session is different because the enemies and bosses are randomly generated.  In the live demo I was in, the group from Epic games got the hardest boss in the game on the tenth wave.  It was a hoot to see the developers of the game have a hard time with the boss on hardcore mode.  In fact, they had such a difficult time that the entire part was wiped out.  So they restarted wave ten and wouldn’t you know it, the same damn boss.  Everybody started laughing and we watching the teamwork ensue.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time, actually went longer than we were supposed to, and were not able to see them finish her off.  At least they didn’t die this time.

Another cool aspect of Gears of War 3 that they showed off was the different paths you take in the single player campaign.  In this instance, I saw Marcus do his thing while Dom was giving him directions off the screen.  After you beat the mission as Marcus, you then play the role of Dom and get to do what Marcus only heard him talking about in his earpiece.  It’s pretty neat to see both sides of the story firsthand.  After watching the demo, I really wanted to play Gears of War and Gears of War 2 in preparation for the finale which is set to be release September 20, 2011.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride - 8/10

Lord of the Rings: War in the North

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Lord of the Rings: War in the North


Even though ZeldaQueen and I didn’t get a chance to play the new Lord of the Rings: War in the North; we still got to watch a live demo of it.  LotR: WitN is a co-op LotR game.  In this LotR we have all new characters, which is kind of nice to see that they are not rehashing the same characters over and over.  The fighting looked fun and there was some teamwork going around.  What was nice about that ranger was that he can actually deal some nasty melee damage.  A lot of games that have a rangers class has it that they are horrible at melee combat.  As a ranger it was always hard to try and run away to shoot a couple of times just so the enemy catches up to you and have to repeat the process.  This can get very annoying.  While I understand a rangers main priority is to shoot at a distance; there are still going to be times where you will face hand to hand combat and it's nice to see that Lord of the Ring: War in the North's rangers can actually be beneficial when melee fighting arises.  Overall, the game is looking fun and for any LOTR fans, this will be a must play.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride - 5/10

Star Wars: The Old Republic

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Star Wars: The Old Republic


Anybody who knows me knows that I’m addicted to MMO’s.  I tend to try every new MMO that gets released at least once, but usually end up going back and sticking with World of Warcraft.  I have been playing a bit of RIFT lately, but have a feeling I maybe quitting that for awhile too.  No other paying MMO has kept my interest (and my money) more than WoW.  Well, I have a feeling that this will all change when Star Wars: The Old Republic gets released.  To say that I was excited to see SWTOR at E3 would be an understatement.  In fact, we stood in line for 2 ½ hours!  The long wait was attributed to that fact that SWTOR had a 10 minute video followed by a 20 minute playable demo.  While waiting in line, we were shown the different classes that we could try once we go into the demo booth.  After looking through all of them, there was not doubt that I wanted to be the Power Tech Bounty Hunter, that’s right, I was going to be Boba Fett.  Assimilator also wanted to try out the Bounty Hunter, while my sister ZeldaQueen had her sights on the dual wielding lightsaber fighter, the Sith Marauder.

When we finally got into the demo booth, we were told that out of the 20 demo computers in the next room; only 12 of them were actually the higher level content of Tatooine while the other 8 were set up in the beginning zone as a member of the Republic.  After waiting 2 ½ hours, there was no way I was going to start in the noob area without being the Sith.  When we were released to the next room to demo the game, I rushed in there, spotted an empty chair where we could demo the higher lever content of Tatooine and sat down.  Now, The Gameslave crew was under the impression that we could pick the class we wanted to try since they were showing off the different classes.  However, the classes we pre-programmed to each computer so it was a random draw of which class we sat down to.  As luck would have it, I was sitting at the Power Tech Bounty Hunter class, score!

Getting into the game I can safely say that SWTOR is coming along very nicely.  While the combat was your traditional MMO combat, it was fun and engaging.  I actually used all my abilities, not just the same three over and over.  The abilities I did have made me feel like a true bad ass Bounty Hunter.  What sets SWTOR apart from traditional MMO’s is that it’s extremely story driven.  Being a gigantic fan of the Knights of the Old Republic series makes this a huge plus that the fine folks at BioWare are really focusing on the story.  Fans of Star Wars, MMO’s and the Knights of the Old Republic series should keep an eye on this game; it very well could be epic.  As for the release date, we still don’t have an official one.  The only thing BioWare and EA are saying is that it will be released in 2011 which probably means we’ll see it next year.  Clearly, SWTOR was my favorite of E3 and cannot wait for its release.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride - 11/10

Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning

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Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning


The final game for Day 1 was a title I had no idea about going into E3, Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning.  KoAR is a title that is being done by the folks at EA and looks to be another generic RPG.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that it looks bad, it just looks like “been there, done that” type of thing.  Essentially, KoAR looks like an Elder Scrolls clone.  I’m a big fan of Elder Scrolls so was kind of skeptical how this game would match up.  Watching the live demo, the gameplay looked fast, frantic and surprisingly smooth.  While this is a RPG game, EA told us that it plays like an action title and watching what little I got to, it sure does look like an action game.  The EA booth was pretty adamant that what sets KoAR apart from other RPG games is their fluid combat and I admit; it did look like a lot of fun.  While KoAR may just be another generic RPG, the combat may just be enough for RPG/action fans to give it a go.  Being a fan of both genres, I’ll probably check it out.  However, there might be a small problem with KoAR’s  projected release date of early 2012, a small title by the name of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim releases a couple of months prior and odds are many gamers will still be enjoying that one. 

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride – 6/10

Dragon Nest

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Dragon Nest

Dragon Nest is a new free to play MMO from Nexon.  I got the opportunity to play the PVP demo of the game.  Dragon Nest has a unique anime art style going for it and as a person that’s not big into anime; Dragon Nest had an artistically pleasant appeal to it.  Like any fantasy MMO, Dragon Nest had your typical classes: Warrior, Ranger, Cleric and Sorcerer.  I got a hold of the warrior and jumped into action.  What’s different than most free MMO games, Dragon Nest was actually fun to play.  The games feels like an action game; where you don’t have to tab target enemies and hit corresponding hot keys until either you or your enemy dies.  The action is fun and frantic.  In my case as a warrior, I ran towards my enemies and actively hit the mouse buttons to swing my sword to attack them.  It has a God of War fighting feel to it, which is quite refreshing in the world of MMO’s.  You do use hot keys for special attacks, but it felt much more action packed then most MMO’s.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to try the PVE demo, but I am looking forward to trying it once it’s released.  And remember gang, once it is released, it’s free, so there is no reason for you not to try it.  Oh, on a side note, I ended up in first place on our team with 5 kills and only 1 death.  I’m usually not great at PVP so I had to brag about it a little bit.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride – 8/10

Dues Ex: Human Evolution

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Dues Ex: Human Evolution


I spent a few minutes with the new Dues Ex and am excited to get a chance to play it in my own living room.  While the graphics are nothing extraordinary, it looks like Dues Ex: Human Evolution will excel in story telling.  One thing that is difficult when demoing these types of games is that you have to remember that this is a story driven game and it’s difficult to jump in for a demo.  What’s cool about Human Evolution is that you can decide how you want to approach missions and the gameplay/dialogue will be different depending how you approach said missions.  The RPG element to the game looks fascinating as you improve your character through new human improvements.  While I should be disappointed with what little I got to play with the demo, the video Square Enix had playing still showcases how this title should be fun for any RPG and sci-fi fans.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride – 7/10.

Dark Souls

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Dark Souls 

From the people who brought us Demon’s Souls, we now have a direct sequel in Dark Souls where we will continue to throw our controllers and spout obscenities at the difficult, but enjoyable, gameplay.  I played the demo of Dark Souls and it’s a lot like the first go around, which isn’t a bad thing.  There are six different classes to choose from which all have their own strengths and weaknesses.  Like the first game, players can invade other players’ games in PVP action while players can still leave messages on the ground to warn other gamers about potential danger.  It was kind of fun to see some previous people who played the demo before me write comments such as “I can’t wait for the game to be released!”  If you played the first Demon’s Souls expect a lot of the same in Dark Souls, engrossing but very, very difficult gameplay.

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride – 7/10

Silent Hill Downpour

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Silent Hill Downpour

Well, Konami is at it again releasing a new iteration of the Silent Hill series.  Like many of the recent Silent Hill releases, Silent Hill Downpour doesn’t look like it will give gamers any hope of success like the first two had seen.  I spent some hands on time with the demo and walked away unimpressed.  The controls were wonky, the graphics bland and the atmosphere was uninspiring.  One aspect of the game that was impressive was the sound of the rain falling at the title screen.  Maybe it’s because I like the sound of falling rain, so I’m a bit biased.  If you’re interested in Silent Hill Downpour for whatever reason, look for it to be released in October. 

Gameslave Hype Meter:

IrishPride – 1/10