Games Cheats and Reviews

Unreal Tournament 2004 fans will likely remember Alien Swarm, the award-winning mod that turned Epic’s multiplayer FPS into a top-down, co-operative shooter. The mod was so popular, in fact, that the developers at Black Cat Games revealed plans to release an updated version using Valve’s Source Engine. Now, five years after that original announcement, Valve and Black Cat are finally ready to make good on those promises.

In just one hour from the time of this writing, Alien Swarm and its complete Source code base will be available for download on Steam. Best of all, it won’t cost you a dime — Valve’s putting out the whole shebang out free of charge.

So what took so long? It turns out Valve hired Black Cat roughly two years ago, and the mod-makers have been toiling away at the Left 4 Dead franchise and Portal 2 ever since. Between high-profile projects like those, it’s a wonder Black Cat found the time to work on Alien Swarm at all.

Capcom has announced Mega Man Universe, an ambitious and mysterious new title in its long-running franchise.

Very few concrete details were given in today’s announcement, though a teaser trailer does provide some clues, including the potential for Mega Man to use the powers and abilities of other Capcom game stars.

It looks like we’ll know all about what EA Maxis has in store next for the Spore franchise before the end of the month, as the latest San Diego Comic-Con schedule shows a planned reveal for a new action RPG related to the Spore series.

You can find the brief description for the panel on the official Comic-Con website (via BigDownload), which calls the new game “a brand new, Sci-Fi Action-RPG based on the DNA of Spore.” There are no other details given, so there’s no saying exactly how this game relates to the Spore series (which has already included expansions for the original PC game as well as a platformer spin-off for the Wii).

One possibility is this new action-RPG could be “Darkspore,” the title EA trademarked back in May. We won’t have to wait long to find out for sure, as the EA Maxis Comic-Con panel is set to take place just two weeks from today, on July 24.

Game compilations run the gamut from lavish affairs crammed with bonus content and a suite of options to cheap, barely-functional shovelware. Capcom’s Mega Man Zero Collection holds the middle ground between those extremes. It’s a bare-bones anthology to be sure, consisting of four Game Boy Advance games with few bells and whistles. On the other hand, the included titles play perfectly, and they’re excellent games to begin with.

Among the few additions MMZC offers over the standalone games, the most important is the option to play through the entire series in sequence. The Zero games remain the most story-driven niche of the entire Mega Man franchise, picking up a century after the Mega Man X series and ultimately building to a very conclusive finale that brings unambiguous closure to the tales of heroes X and Zero.

Ratchet & Clank and Resistance developer Insomniac Games has entered into a multi-platform publishing partnership with EA Partners, breaking a 16-year streak of PlayStation exclusivity.

While terms of the agreement were not disclosed, it was revealed that the deal covers an entirely new franchise created by the company, which will be published on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.

Now that Infinity Ward has managed to implode into a mere shadow of what it once was, the Call of Duty franchise has been left in shambles.  This leaves the once venerable series in a position of once again having to prove itself to the hardcore gaming audience.  Treyarch attempted to take a step in the right direction with their release of the first true “in-game” trailer for the newly announced, Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Check out the full uncut trailer below:

Does this look like a worth successor to the Call of Duty crown?  Oddly enough, I think that the trailer shows that the team over at Treyarch might be moving away from the passable mediocrity that they pioneered in Call of Duty 3.  Call me crazy, but with added features like co-op already confirmed to be included in the game, this might be just the kickstart that Activision is hoping for.

What do you think?

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

With each iteration of the Skate franchise, the game becomes less “that other skating game” and more of a serious competitor with Activision’s Tony Hawk games. When Tony Hawk: Ride was release with its skateboard peripheral, it definitely raised some eyebrows. This gives the Skate series the opportunity to convert some fans who still want to play from the couch. Will Skate 3 deliver or fall and skin its knees?

The first two Skate games took place in San Vanelona, a city full of angry police who treated skaters like the plague. Skate 3 is ditching this bummer of a city for the more relaxed and skater friendly Port Carverton. Rather then rebelling against the man, Skate 3 is all about starting up your own board company. The career mode will be all about building your companies brand and selling some boards. The more challenges you complete the more your brand gets noticed and better your company does.

If you struggled in past Skate games, don’t worry. That has been addressed along with the grumpy San Vanelona. Not only are there three difficulty levels now, but Port Caverton has less litter for you to get hung up on. Additionally you have the ability to yell at people and get them out of your way. This should help prevent the frequent botched tricks as a result of running into people or hitting loose soda cans. A tutorial in the form of Skate School should also help out the uninitiated.

Playing online is a big part of Skate 3. It is actually possible to play your entire career online in coop mode with friends. After all, skating just isn’t as fun when you are by yourself. Additionally, any custom characters created by your friends will make their way into your game. You will occasionally see AI versions of your friends skating around town, which is a nice touch.

If Skate 3 has learned from its mistakes in the past, then this could be the best skating game this generation. My biggest concern is the serious lack of helmets. Those avatars are doing some crazy stunts and will probably be falling down a lot. They really need to protect their heads. Safety first!

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

Kotaku writes: Hello! Time to pull up a chair and sit down in it. And talk.

Here’s how it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn’t some marketing survey or whatever. It’s an emotional investment in you. Yes, we’re interested in knowing you, Kotaku reader person.

You probably know oodles about us – more than you even want to, we’re sure. But, hey, we’d like to know about you. That way you won’t be some faceless blob – and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban ya. Or not, because really we’re incapable of human emotion.

Question: What franchise are you sick of?

That Gaming Site writes: "In an SEC filing by Interplay posted today the company has revealed they do not plan on dropping their counter-suit against Bethesda over the Fallout franchise. Early today it was revealed Bethesda had dropped their appeal for an injunction that would effectively halt development of the Fallout MMO and Interplay’s ability to sell past Fallout titles."

Game Informer writes: "It’s been a busy deadline week in the halls of Game Informer, but that hasn’t stopped us from preparing the most three-intensive episode of the Game Informer Show since…well, Episode 3, probably.

With host Matt Helgeson out, I invite Jeff Cork onto the show to explain why we should be interested in the game based on Pixar’s Toy Story 3. After that, Matt Bertz takes the guest chair to spill the beans on F.E.A.R. 3, the first main game in the franchise that will be developed by someone other than Monolith. We discuss the potential good points of the upcoming game and also some aspects that have us a bit worried. For the final segment, a freshly-tanned Tim Turi tells all about his trip to Hawaii and the various Capcom games he saw there — including Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3.